Anti–SARS-CoV Immunoglobulin G in Healthcare Workers, Guangzhou, China

摘要

To determine the prevalence of inapparent infectionwith severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) amonghealthcare workers, we performed a serosurvey to test forimmunoglobulin (Ig) G antibodies to the SARS coronavirus(SARS-CoV) among 1,147 healthcare workers in 3 hospi-tals that admitted SARS patients in mid-May 2003. Amongthem were 90 healthcare workers with SARS. As a refer-ence group, 709 healthcare workers who worked in 2 hos-pitals that never admitted any SARS patients were similarlytested. The seroprevalence rate was 88.9% (80/90) forhealthcare workers with SARS and 1.4% (15/1,057) forhealthcare workers who were apparently healthy. The sero-prevalence in the reference group was 0.4% (3/709). Thesefindings suggest that inapparent infection is uncommon.Low level of immunity among unaffected healthcare work-ers reinforces the need for adequate personal protectionand other infection control measures in hospitals to preventfuture epidemics