From the, Department of Laboratory Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.
Roo Home Services, Stockholm, Sweden.
J Intern Med. 2021 Aug;290(2):430-436. doi: 10.1111/joim.13274. Epub 2021 Apr 12.
In Sweden, home care services is a major external contact for older persons.
Five home care service companies in Stockholm, Sweden, enrolled 405 employees to a study including serum IgG to SARS-CoV-2 and SARS-CoV-2 virus in throat swabs.
20.1% (81/403) of employees were seropositive, about twice as many as in a simultaneously enrolled reference population (healthcare workers entirely without patient contact, n = 3671; 9.7% seropositivity). 13/379 employees (3.4%) had a current infection (PCR positivity). Amongst these, 5 were also seropositive and 3 were positive with low amounts of virus. High amounts of virus and no antibodies (a characteristic for presymptomatic COVID-19) were present in 5 employees (1.3%).
Personnel providing home services for older persons appear to be a risk group for SARS-CoV-2. Likely presymptomatic employees can be readily identified by screening. Increased protection of employees and of the older persons they serve is warranted.
在瑞典，家庭护理服务是老年人的主要外部接触点。
瑞典斯德哥尔摩的五家家庭护理服务公司招募了 405 名员工，对他们的血清 IgG 进行了 SARS-CoV-2 和 SARS-CoV-2 病毒的检测。
403 名员工中有 20.1%（81 人）呈血清阳性，大约是同时招募的参考人群（完全没有接触患者的医护人员，n=3671；血清阳性率为 9.7%）的两倍。379 名员工中的 13 人（3.4%）有当前感染（PCR 阳性）。其中，5 人血清阳性，3 人病毒载量低。5 名员工（1.3%）病毒载量高但无抗体（这是 COVID-19 症状前的特征）。
为老年人提供家庭服务的人员似乎是 SARS-CoV-2 的高风险人群。通过筛查可以很容易地识别出可能有症状前的员工。应加强对员工和他们所服务的老年人的保护。
