Nutritional Advice El MondoObjectives:
What is the proportion of health care workers (HCW) who are COVID-19 positive?
Study design:
This review article included 11 studies from December-31, 2019 to April-23, 2020.
The search was limited to the studies that reported the data on the number of COVID-19 positive healthcare workers, among the COVID-19 positive patients.
Case reports, duplicate publications, reviews and family-based studies were excluded.
Results and conclusions:
The investigators found the overall proportion of health care workers who were SARS-CoV-2 positive among all COVID-19 patients was 10.1% [95% CI = 5.3% to 14.9%].
This proportion varied according to the country of study i.e. China (7 studies): 4.2% [95% CI = 2.4% to 6.0%], United States (3 studies): 17.8% [95% CI = 7.5% to 28.0%] and Italy (1 study): 9.0% [95% CI = 8.6% to 9.4%].
The investigators found the incidence of severe or critical disease in health care workers was 9.9% [95% CI = 0.8% to 18.9%] and was significantly lower [p 0.001] than the incidence of severe or critical disease in all COVID-19 positive patients [29.4%, 95% CI = 18.6% to 40.2%].
The investigators found, similarly, the mortality among health care workers was 0.3% [95% CI = 0.2% to 0.4%] and was also significantly lower [p 0.001] as compared to that of all patients [2.3%, 95% CI = 2.2 to 2.4%].
The investigators concluded health care workers who are COVID-19 positive constitute a significant proportion of all COVID-19 patients. However, the severity and mortality are lower among them.
Original title:
COVID-19 in health care workers - A systematic review and meta-analysis by Sahu AK, Amrithanand VT, […], Bhoi S.
Link:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32738467/
Additional information of El Mondo:
Find more information/studies on coronavirus right here.