TY  - JOUR
A1  - Reusch, Julia
A1  - Wagenhäuser, Isabell
A1  - Gabel, Alexander
A1  - Eggestein, Annika
A1  - Höhn, Anna
A1  - Lâm, Thiên-Trí
A1  - Frey, Anna
A1  - Schubert-Unkmeir, Alexandra
A1  - Dölken, Lars
A1  - Frantz, Stefan
A1  - Kurzai, Oliver
A1  - Vogel, Ulrich
A1  - Krone, Manuel
A1  - Petri, Nils
T1  - Influencing factors of anti-SARS-CoV-2-spike-IgG antibody titers in healthcare workers: A cross-section study
JF  - Journal of Medical Virology
N2  - Against the background of the current COVID-19 infection dynamics with its rapid spread of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern (VOC), the immunity and the vaccine prevention of healthcare workers (HCWs) against SARS-CoV-2 continues to be of high importance. This observational cross-section study assesses factors influencing the level of anti-SARS-CoV-2-spike IgG after SARS-CoV-2 infection or vaccination. One thousand seven hundred and fifty HCWs were recruited meeting the following inclusion criteria: age ≥18 years, PCR-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection convalescence and/or at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccination. anti-SARS-CoV-2-spike IgG titers were determined by SERION ELISA agile SARS-CoV-2 IgG. Mean anti-SARS-CoV-2-spike IgG levels increased significantly by number of COVID-19 vaccinations (92.2 BAU/ml for single, 140.9 BAU/ml for twice and 1144.3 BAU/ml for threefold vaccination). Hybrid COVID-19 immunized respondents (after infection and vaccination) had significantly higher antibody titers compared with convalescent only HCWs. Anti-SARS-CoV-2-spike IgG titers declined significantly with time after the second vaccination. Smoking and high age were associated with lower titers. Both recovered and vaccinated HCWs presented a predominantly good humoral immune response. Smoking and higher age limited the humoral SARS-CoV-2 immunity, adding to the risk of severe infections within this already health impaired collective.
KW  - anti‐SARS‐CoV‐2‐spike IgG
KW  - seroprevalence
KW  - SARS‐CoV‐2 infection
KW  - healthcare workers
KW  - COVID‐19 vaccination
Y1  - 2022
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-318659
VL  - 95
IS  - 1
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Krüger, Sören
A1  - Leskien, Miriam
A1  - Schuller, Patricia
A1  - Prifert, Christiane
A1  - Weißbrich, Benedikt
A1  - Vogel, Ulrich
A1  - Krone, Manuel
T1  - Performance and feasibility of universal PCR admission screening for SARS‐CoV‐2 in a German tertiary care hospital
JF  - Journal of Medical Virology
N2  - Anamnestic screening of symptoms and contact history is applied to identify coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) patients on admission. However, asymptomatic and presymptomatic patients remain undetected although the viral load may be high. In this retrospective cohort study, all hospitalized patients who received polymerase chain reaction (PCR) admission testing from March 26th until May 24th, 2020 were included. Data on COVID‐19‐specific symptoms and contact history to COVID‐19 cases were retrospectively extracted from patient files and from contact tracing notes. The compliance to the universal testing protocol was high with 90%. Out of 6940 tested patients, 27 new severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus‐2 infections (0.4%) were detected. Seven of those COVID‐19 cases (26% of all new cases) were asymptomatic and had no positive contact history, but were identified through a positive PCR test. The number needed to identify an asymptomatic patient was 425 in the first wave of the epidemic, 1218 in the low incidence phase. The specificity of the method was above 99.9%. Universal PCR testing was highly accepted by staff as demonstrated by high compliance. The costs to detect one asymptomatic case in future studies need to be traded off against the costs and damage caused by potential outbreaks of COVID‐19.
KW  - admission screening
KW  - COVID‐19
KW  - infection control
KW  - SARS‐CoV‐2
KW  - testing strategy
Y1  - 2021
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-238971
VL  - 93
IS  - 5
SP  - 2890
EP  - 2898
ER  -