tetano
Editor, Senior Moderator
Pediatr Nephrol
. 2023 Jun 1.
doi: 10.1007/s00467-023-05983-1. Online ahead of print. Increasing SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence among UK pediatric patients on dialysis and kidney transplantation between January 2020 and August 2021
Holly N Bamber[SUP] #[/SUP][SUP] 1 [/SUP], Jon Jin Kim[SUP] #[/SUP][SUP] 2 3 [/SUP], Ben C Reynolds[SUP] 4 [/SUP], Javairiya Afzaal[SUP] 2 [/SUP], Andrew J Lunn[SUP] 2 [/SUP], Patrick J Tighe[SUP] 1 [/SUP], William L Irving[SUP] 1 5 6 7 [/SUP], Alexander W Tarr[SUP] #[/SUP][SUP] 8 9 10 11 [/SUP]
Affiliations
Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was officially declared a pandemic by the World Health Organisation (WHO) on 11 March 2020, as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) spread rapidly across the world. We investigated the seroprevalence of anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in pediatric patients on dialysis or kidney transplantation in the UK.
Methods: Excess sera samples were obtained prospectively during outpatient visits or haemodialysis sessions and analysed using a custom immunoassay calibrated with population age-matched healthy controls. Two large pediatric centres contributed samples.
Results: In total, 520 sera from 145 patients (16 peritoneal dialysis, 16 haemodialysis, 113 transplantation) were analysed cross-sectionally from January 2020 until August 2021. No anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody positive samples were detected in 2020 when lockdown and enhanced social distancing measures were enacted. Thereafter, the proportion of positive samples increased from 5% (January 2021) to 32% (August 2021) following the emergence of the Alpha variant. Taking all patients, 32/145 (22%) were seropositive, including 8/32 (25%) with prior laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection and 12/32 (38%) post-vaccination (one of whom was also infected after vaccination). The remaining 13 (41%) seropositive patients had no known stimulus, representing subclinical cases. Antibody binding signals were comparable across patient ages and dialysis versus transplantation and highest against full-length spike protein versus spike subunit-1 and nucleocapsid protein.
Conclusions: Anti-SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence was low in 2020 and increased in early 2021. Serological surveillance complements nucleic acid detection and antigen testing to build a greater picture of the epidemiology of COVID-19 and is therefore important to guide public health responses. A higher resolution version of the Graphical abstract is available as Supplementary information.
Keywords: Antibodies; Child; Dialysis; Kidney replacement therapy; SARS-CoV-2; Seroprevalence.
. 2023 Jun 1.
doi: 10.1007/s00467-023-05983-1. Online ahead of print. Increasing SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence among UK pediatric patients on dialysis and kidney transplantation between January 2020 and August 2021
Holly N Bamber[SUP] #[/SUP][SUP] 1 [/SUP], Jon Jin Kim[SUP] #[/SUP][SUP] 2 3 [/SUP], Ben C Reynolds[SUP] 4 [/SUP], Javairiya Afzaal[SUP] 2 [/SUP], Andrew J Lunn[SUP] 2 [/SUP], Patrick J Tighe[SUP] 1 [/SUP], William L Irving[SUP] 1 5 6 7 [/SUP], Alexander W Tarr[SUP] #[/SUP][SUP] 8 9 10 11 [/SUP]
Affiliations
- PMID: 37261514
- DOI: 10.1007/s00467-023-05983-1
Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was officially declared a pandemic by the World Health Organisation (WHO) on 11 March 2020, as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) spread rapidly across the world. We investigated the seroprevalence of anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in pediatric patients on dialysis or kidney transplantation in the UK.
Methods: Excess sera samples were obtained prospectively during outpatient visits or haemodialysis sessions and analysed using a custom immunoassay calibrated with population age-matched healthy controls. Two large pediatric centres contributed samples.
Results: In total, 520 sera from 145 patients (16 peritoneal dialysis, 16 haemodialysis, 113 transplantation) were analysed cross-sectionally from January 2020 until August 2021. No anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody positive samples were detected in 2020 when lockdown and enhanced social distancing measures were enacted. Thereafter, the proportion of positive samples increased from 5% (January 2021) to 32% (August 2021) following the emergence of the Alpha variant. Taking all patients, 32/145 (22%) were seropositive, including 8/32 (25%) with prior laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection and 12/32 (38%) post-vaccination (one of whom was also infected after vaccination). The remaining 13 (41%) seropositive patients had no known stimulus, representing subclinical cases. Antibody binding signals were comparable across patient ages and dialysis versus transplantation and highest against full-length spike protein versus spike subunit-1 and nucleocapsid protein.
Conclusions: Anti-SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence was low in 2020 and increased in early 2021. Serological surveillance complements nucleic acid detection and antigen testing to build a greater picture of the epidemiology of COVID-19 and is therefore important to guide public health responses. A higher resolution version of the Graphical abstract is available as Supplementary information.
Keywords: Antibodies; Child; Dialysis; Kidney replacement therapy; SARS-CoV-2; Seroprevalence.