Point prevalence for COVID-19 among temporary tea farmers with mass screening: An example from Turkey

Year 2020, Volume: 18 Issue: COVID-19 Special, 40 - 46, 06.12.2020

Tahsin Gökhan Telatar Mehmet Baykal Burcu Aykanat Yurtsever Sarp Üner

https://doi.org/10.20518/tjph.771720

Abstract

Objective: Since the detection of the first COVID-19 case in Rize on 20th of March 2020, there were a total of 229 reported cases until 23 May 2020. There is currently no information available about the asymptomatic COVID-19 cases in Turkey. This study aims to detect the point prevalence of -19 among tea farmers who came to Rize from other provinces during May 2020. Methods: Among the 40 thousand estimated tea workers who came to Rize in May 2020, a total of 11,180 PCR results were evaluated. The specimens were collected by healthcare workers working for the Rize Provincial Directorate of Healh and analyzed in the Reference Laboratory for Microbiology of the Ministry of Health. The point prevalence of being PCR positive for -19 was calculated. Results: The point prevalence of -19 among asymptomatic tea workers was found to be 0.197%. Being -19 positive was not statistically significant with age groups and gender (p= 0.183 and p= 0.234, respectively). Conclusions: Sudden demographic changes in society is a major challenge for establishing a sustainable control policy for COVID-19. Defining the asymptomatic proportions of the population is crucial for planning effective control strategies. Calculating point prevalence among an asymptomatic population with mass screening is a useful tool for this purpose.

Keywords

COVID-19, mass screening, point prevelance, asemptomatik vakalar

Geçici çay işçilerinde kitlesel tarama ile COVID-19 nokta prevelansının belirlenmesi: Türkiye’den bir örnek

Abstract

Amaç: Rize’de 20 Mart 2020 tarihinde ilk COVID-19 vakasının tanınmasından itibaren 23 Mayıs 2020 tarihine kadar toplam 229 vaka rapor edilmiştir. Günümüzde Türkiye’de assemptomatik COVID-19 vakaları ile ilgili bir bilgi bulunmamaktadır. Bu çalışmanın amacı diğer illerden Rize’ye Mayıs 2020 döneminde çay tarımı amacı ile gelen kişler arasında COVID-19 nokta prevelansının belirlenmesidir. Yöntem: Rize iline Mayıs 2020 döneminde gelen tahminen 40 bin çay üreticisinde yapılan toplam 11180 PCR testi sonucu değerlendirilmiştir. Örnekler Rize İl Sağlık Müdürlüğü bünyesinde çalışan sağlık personeli tarafından alınmış ve Sağlık Bakanlığı’nın Referans Mikrobiyoloji Laboratuvarında değerlendirilmiştir. COVID-19 açısından pozitif sonucu olanlar için nokta prevelansı hesaplanmıştır. Bulgular: Asemptomatik çay üreticileri arasında COVID-19 nokta prevelansı %0.197 oalrak hesaplanmıştır. COVID-19 yönünden pozitif olmak ile yaş grupları ve cinsiyet arasında istatistiksel olarak anlamlı bir ilişki bulunmamıştır (sırasıyla p=0.183 and p=0.234). Sonuç: Toplumdaki ani demografik değişiklikler, COVID-19 ile mücadelede sürdürülebilir kontrol politikaları belirlenmesinde önemli bir zorluktur. Nüfus içindeki asemptomatik kişilerin belirlenmesi, etkili kontrol stratejilerinin planlanabilmesi için bütük önem taşımaktadır. Kitlesel tarama yöntemi ile asemtomatik bir grup içindeki nokta prevelansının belirlenmesi bu amaca ulaşmak için kullanışlı bir yöntemdir.

Keywords

COVID-19, kitlesel tarama, nokta prevelansı, asemptomatik vakalar

References

• CDC. COVID-19 Pandemic Planning Scenarios. 2020 [updated May 2020]; Available from: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scenarios.html.
• Gandhi M, Yokoe DS, Havlir DV. Asymptomatic Transmission, the Achilles’ Heel of Current Strategies to Control Covid-19. New England Journal of Medicine 2020;382(22):2158-60.
• Nishiura H, Kobayashi T, Miyama T, Suzuki A, Jung S-M, Hayashi K, et al. Estimation of the asymptomatic ratio of novel coronavirus infections (COVID-19). Int J Infect Dis 2020;94:154-5. Epub 2020/03/14.
• Board CNS. COVID-19 Genel Bilgiler, Epidemiyoloji ve Tanı. Ankara: T.C. Sağlık Bakanlığı Halk Sağlığı Genel Müdürlüğü; 2020 [updated 01.06.2020]; Available from: https://covid19bilgi.saglik.gov.tr/tr/covid-19-rehberi.html.
• Lipsitch M, Swerdlow DL, Finelli L. Defining the epidemiology of Covid-19—studies needed. New England journal of medicine 2020;382(13):1194-6.
• Organization WH. Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19): situation report, 46. 2020.
• Institution TS. Demographic and Migration Statistics. Ankara, Turkey: TUIK; 2020; Available from: http://tuik.gov.tr/PreTablo.do?alt_id=1067.
• Health Mo. Digital Public Health Database Records. 2020; Available from: https://giris.saglik.gov.tr/
• Kish L. A Procedure for Objective Respondent Selection within the Household. Journal of the American Statistical Association 1949;44(247):380-7.
• Ye F, Xu S, Rong Z, Xu R, Liu X, Deng P, et al. Delivery of infection from asymptomatic carriers of COVID-19 in a familial cluster. International Journal of Infectious Diseases 2020;94:133-8.
• Jing C, Wenjie S, Jianping H, Michelle G, Jing W, Guiqing H. Indirect Virus Transmission in Cluster of COVID-19 Cases, Wenzhou, China, 2020. Emerging Infectious Disease journal 2020;26(6):1343.
• Arevalo-Rodriguez I, Buitrago-Garcia D, Simancas-Racines D, Zambrano-Achig P, del Campo R, Ciapponi A, et al. False-negative results of initial rt-pcr assays for covid-19: a systematic review. medRxiv 2020:2020.04.16.20066787.
• Nishiura H, Jung S-m, Linton NM, Kinoshita R, Yang Y, Hayashi K, et al. The extent of transmission of novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China, 2020. Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute; 2020.
• Methodology for estimating point prevalence of SARSCoV-2 infection by pooled RT-PCR testing. Stockholm: ECDC: European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, 2020.
• Dowd JB, Andriano L, Brazel DM, Rotondi V, Block P, Ding X, et al. Demographic science aids in understanding the spread and fatality rates of COVID-19. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2020;117(18):9696-8.
• Treibel TA, Manisty C, Burton M, McKnight Á, Lambourne J, Augusto JB, et al. COVID-19: PCR screening of asymptomatic health-care workers at London hospital. The Lancet 2020;395(10237):1608-10.
• Governorship R. News. 2020; Available from: http://www.rize.gov.tr/haberler.
• HASUDER. COVID-19 Weekly News. Ankara: Association of Public Health Specialists, 2020.
• Walter LA, McGregor AJ. Sex- and Gender-specific Observations and Implications for COVID-19. West J Emerg Med 2020;21(3):507-9.
• Organization WH. WHO Methodology for Point Prevalence Survey on Antibiotic Use in Hospitals, version 1.1. World Health Organization, 2018.
• Tagarro A, Epalza C, Santos M, Sanz-Santaeufemia FJ, Otheo E, Moraleda C, et al. Screening and Severity of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Children in Madrid, Spain. JAMA Pediatrics 2020. Epub 2020/04/09.
• Webb K, Peckham H, Nd G, Raine C, Radziszewska A, Ciurtin C, et al. Sex-bias in COVID-19: a meta-analysis and review of sex differences in disease and immunity. Research Square 2020(Doi: 10.21203/rs.3.rs-23651/v1).
• Liu N, Zhang F, Wei C, Jia Y, Shang Z, Sun L, et al. Prevalence and predictors of PTSS during COVID-19 outbreak in China hardest-hit areas: Gender differences matter. Psychiatry Research 2020;287:112921.
• Gostic K, Gomez AC, Mummah RO, Kucharski AJ, Lloyd-Smith JO. Estimated effectiveness of symptom and risk screening to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Elife 2020;9:e55570.
• Shi F, Xia L, Shan F, Wu D, Wei Y, Yuan H, et al. Large-scale screening of covid-19 from community acquired pneumonia using infection size-aware classification. arXiv preprint arXiv:200309860. 2020.