Understanding the drivers of transmission of SARS-CoV-2.
Understanding the drivers of transmission of SARS-CoV-2.
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DOI:
10.1016/s1473-3099(21)00005-0
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发表时间:
2021-05
期刊:
影响因子:
--
通讯作者:
André E
中科院分区:
文献类型:
--
作者:
Cornelissen L;André E
Despite the recent development of effective vaccines against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), non-pharmaceutical interventions will remain the cornerstone in the battle against COVID-19 for some time. Such interventions are effective but have major societal and economic impacts and should therefore be used as selectively as possible. Quarantine after exposure to a patient with COVID-19 is such a measure. Reported secondary-attack rates among so-called high-risk contacts have varied widely from lower than 1% to 54· 9%. 1 In the Lancet Infectious Diseases, to better understand these differences, Michael Marks and colleagues explored factors related to onwards transmission of SARS-CoV-2. 2 The authors used data from a randomised controlled trial in Barcelona that assessed the use of hydroxychloroquine as postexposure prophylaxis. 3 In addition to demographic and epidemiological variables (age, sex, symptoms, type of exposure, and so on) the dataset contained information on viral load as assessed by quantitative PCR for both the index case and the contacts with a positive test. With these data from 282 index cases and 753 contacts, the authors assessed the relationship of viral load and characteristics of cases (age, sex, number of days from reported symptom onset, and presence or absence of fever, cough, dyspnoea, rhinitis, and anosmia) and associations between risk of transmission and characteristics of the index case and contacts.Marks and colleagues found that the viral load of the index case was strongly associated with the risk of onward transmission (adjusted odds ratio per log10 increase in viral load 1· 3, 95% CI 1· 1–1· 6) and that this risk was higher for household contacts (2· 7, 1· 4–5· 06) than for other types of contact (health-care worker, nursing home worker, or nursing home resident). Additionally, they found a small, but significant, effect for age of the contact person, with older individuals being more at risk of becoming infected. Because the included population of both index cases and contacts consisted mainly of adults aged 27–57 years, more important age effects, such as those for children, might have been difficult to identify. Although the effectiveness of masks is well established, 4, 5 in the