HealthDay News – For the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, the overall weighted estimate of undiagnosed seropositivity was 4.6 percent, according to a study published in the June 22 issue of Science Translational Medicine.
Heather Kalish, Ph.D., of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, and colleagues analyzed seropositivity in 9,089 adults in the United States who had not previously been diagnosed with COVID-19. A total of 27,716 individuals with characteristics that reflect the US population were selected through quota sampling; medical, geographic, demographic and socio-economic information as well as dried blood samples were provided by 11,382 participants.
A total of 88.7 percent of the blood samples were processed using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay to determine seropositivity (immunoglobulin [Ig]G and IgM antibodies against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 [SARS-CoV-2] Spike protein and the spike protein receptor binding domain). The researchers found that the overall weighted estimate of undiagnosed seropositivity was 4.6 percent, with estimates ranging from 1.1 to 14.2 percent for race, age, gender, ethnicity, and urban / rural subgroups. African American participants; younger, female, and Hispanic participants; and residents of urban centers had the highest seropositivity ratings. These data show that for every diagnosed case of COVID-19 there were 4.8 undiagnosed SARS-CoV-2 infections and that an estimated 16.8 million COVID-19 infections were undiagnosed in the United States by mid-July 2020 .
Continue reading
“Our results have implications for understanding the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the epidemiological features of the spread and prevalence in different communities, and could have a potential impact on decisions related to vaccine adoption,” the authors write.
Two authors are co-inventors of a preliminary US patent application in connection with SARS-CoV-2.
Summary / full text (subscription or payment may be required)
