Prevalence and Clinical Presentation of COVID 19 in Health Care Workers in Two Main Hospitals During the Pandemic in Shiraz, Iran

Given that immunocompromised patients are more at risk for the infection of SARS-CoV-2, epidemiological data are critical for assessing the corresponding prevalence among health care workers (HCWs) and patients at health centers.

This study aims to investigate the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infection among the staff of two hospitals that take care of immunocompromised patients, including pediatrics and adults with special medical conditions.

This cross-sectional study includes all HCWs of the two hospitals; Abu Ali Sina Transplant Hospital (AASTH) and Amir al-Momenin Burn Injury Hospital (AABIH) in Shiraz, southern Iran, conducted from April 11, 2020, to June 16, 2021. The TaqMan real-time PCR assay was used to assess the SARS-CoV-2 infection rate in the suspected HCWs.

Out of 1232 sampled HCWs, 694 (56%) were female. Two hundred sixty-five samples (21.5%) and 967 samples (78.5%) were prepared from AABIH, and AASTH, respectively. The results showed that 30% (373) of the clinically suspected employees had positive test results. There was a significant correlation between the risk of exposure to COVID-19 patients and the PCR positivity rate, which could be explained by the fact that 58% of the infected HCWs were in a high-risk group, 20% medium-risk, and the remaining 22% were low-risk (P < 0.0001). The rates of positive cases in females were higher than that among male counterparts (P < 0.05).

In order to protect health care workers and reduce the prevalence and transmission of diseases, deficiencies must be identified and eliminated.