Papagiannis Dimitrios, Laios Theodoros, Tryposkiadis Konstantinos, Kouriotis Konstantinos, Roussis Xenophon, Basdekis Georgios, Boudouris Panagiotis, Cholevas Christos, Karakitsios Stergios, Kakavas Pindaros, Kiriakidis Theoharis, Kouloumentas Panagiotis, Kouvidis Georgios, Manoudis Grigoris, Nikolaou Pantelis, Theos Christos, Piskopakis Andreas-Nikolaos, Rallis Ioannis, Ristanis Stavros, Toliopoulos Alexandros, Zisis Grigoris, Theodorakis Yiannis, Gourgoulianis Konstantinos I, Rachiotis Georgios
Public Health & Vaccines Lab, Department of Nursing, School of Health Sciences, University of Thessaly Larissa, 411 10 Larissa, Greece.
Super League Greece Mesogeion 174, 151 25 Maroussi, Greece.
Vaccines (Basel). 2022 Apr 19;10(5):634. doi: 10.3390/vaccines10050634.
Little is known about the risk of COVID-19 infection among footballers. We aimed to investigate the incidence and characteristics of COVID-19 infection among footballers. In total, 480 football players of Super League Greece and 420 staff members participated in a prospective cohort study, which took place from May 2020 to May 2021. Nasopharyngeal swabs were collected from footballers and staff members weekly. All samples (n = 43,975) collected were tested using the reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test for the detection of “SARS-CoV-2”. In total, 190 positive cases (130 among professional football players and 60 among staff) were recorded. Out of the 190 cases that turned positive, 64 (34%) cases were considered as symptomatic, and 126 (66%) cases were asymptomatic. The incidence rate of a positive test result for footballers was 0.57% (confidence interval (CI) 0.48−0.68%) and for staff members it was 0.27% (CI 0.20%, 0.34%), respectively. Footballers recorded a twofold increased risk of COVID-19 infection in comparison to staff members (relative risk = 2.16; 95% CI = 1.59−2.93; p-value < 0.001). No significant transmission events were observed during the follow-up period. We found a low incidence of COVID-19 infection among professional footballers over a long follow-up period. Furthermore, the implementation of a weekly diagnostic testing (RT-PCR) was critical to break the transmission chain of COVID-19, especially among asymptomatic football players and staff members.
关于足球运动员感染新冠病毒的风险，人们所知甚少。我们旨在调查足球运动员感染新冠病毒的发病率和特征。共有480名希腊超级联赛的足球运动员和420名工作人员参与了一项前瞻性队列研究，该研究于2020年5月至2021年5月进行。每周从足球运动员和工作人员中采集鼻咽拭子。对所有采集的样本（n = 43,975）使用逆转录聚合酶链反应（RT-PCR）检测来检测“严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒2（SARS-CoV-2）”。总共记录了190例阳性病例（职业足球运动员中有130例，工作人员中有60例）。在这190例呈阳性的病例中，64例（34%）被认为有症状，126例（66%）无症状。足球运动员检测结果呈阳性的发病率为0.57%（置信区间（CI）0.48−0.68%），工作人员为0.27%（CI 0.20%，0.34%）。与工作人员相比，足球运动员感染新冠病毒的风险增加了两倍（相对风险 = 2.16；95% CI = 1.59−2.93；p值 < 0.001）。在随访期间未观察到明显的传播事件。我们发现在长时间的随访期内，职业足球运动员感染新冠病毒的发病率较低。此外，每周进行诊断检测（RT-PCR）对于打破新冠病毒的传播链至关重要，尤其是在无症状的足球运动员和工作人员中。
