First study using data collected as part of the large-scale serology testing at SciLifeLab published
Published: 2020-10-15
Recently, the first study based on the data collected as part of the large-scale serology testing carried out at the ScilifeLab Autoimmunity and Serology profiling facility has been published in Nature Communications. The team of researchers behind this study (first authors: Ann-Sofie Rudberg and Sebastian Havervall; PIs: Peter Nilsson, Sophia Hober, and Charlotte Thålin) investigated the seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibodies in healthcare workers at a large acute-care hospital in Sweden and associations with self-reported symptoms and occupational exposure to SARS-CoV-2. This study used only a fraction of the large volume of SARS-CoV-2 serology data collected by the ScilifeLab Autoimmunity and Serology profiling facility since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The collected data contains sensitive personal data and cannot be shared publicly, but the researchers welcome potential collaboration inquiries and data re-use requests from researchers.
Rudberg and Havervall and colleagues studied samples from 2149 healthcare workers recruited in April and May 2020. Among the recruited participants, 19.1% had IgG antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 which was a higher proportion than the reported regional seroprevalence during the same time period. Symptoms most strongly associated with seroprevalence were anosmia and ageusia. In terms of occupational exposure, seroprevalence was associated with patient contact in general and specifically COVID-19 patient contact. For the purpose of this study, the collected samples were simply categorized as IgG “positive” or “negative” based on a particular cutoff thresholds. However, specific values from each sample for several different variants of both the Spike-protein as well the Nucleocapsid-protein are currently undergoing detailed analyses.
Overall, since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the ScilifeLab Autoimmunity and Serology profiling facility has carried out approximately 80.000 serology tests as part of this and other projects. Data from other projects can also potentially be shared with researchers outside of groups directly working at the facility. Interested parties are invited to contact prof. Peter Nilsson, prof. Sophia Hober, or dr. Charlotte Thålin (contact information can be found in the published article).
Article
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-18848-0
Rudberg, A., Havervall, S., Månberg, A. et al. SARS-CoV-2 exposure, symptoms and seroprevalence in healthcare workers in Sweden. Nat Commun 11, 5064 (2020).
