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Abstract
Objective
To investigate whether personnel in a public dental clinic had a higher frequency of ongoing or previous severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection than hospital healthcare workers or the general public in Stockholm during weeks 23–25 in 2020.
Materials and methods
We carried out an observational cohort study from March to June 2020, including 341 employees randomly selected from Public Dental Service in the County of Stockholm. The primary outcome variable was the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA and/or antibodies against SARS-CoV-2. Throat samples were analysed for SARS-CoV-2 RNA. Venous blood was collected to detect antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 using the Luminex analysis tool (immunoassay) and ELISA. Logistic regression analysis was used to compare the independent groups and calculate the unadjusted odds ratio.
Results
The mean age of the participants was 50.1 years, and 11.7% were male. The prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA and/or antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 was 12.0% (95% confidence interval 8.8–16.0). Among them, 82.5% reported symptoms and 85.4% were on sick-leave between March and June 2020.
Conclusions
The seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infection was approximately similar to that in healthcare personnel, and approximately equal compared to that in the general population.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to express our deepest gratitude to Professor Joakim Diller and the volunteers who participated in this study.
Disclosure statement
The authors report no conflicts of interest and are responsible for the content and writing of this manuscript.
Data availability statement
The data supporting the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.