Sotiropoulos Christos, Loulelis Vasileios, Mastorakou Anna, Adamopoulou Eleni, Kortesas Theoharis, Dimitropoulou Aimilia, Blika Eleni, Papadimitriou-Olivgeri Ioanna, Binenbaum Ilona
Sotiropoulos Private Laboratory, 26222 Patras, Greece.
Loulelis Private Laboratory, 26221 Patras, Greece.
Vaccines (Basel). 2022 Sep 6;10(9):1484. doi: 10.3390/vaccines10091484.
Background: We investigated the impact of the indoor mass gathering of young people during the Patras Carnival in Greece on the course of the COVID-19 pandemic and the influenza A epidemic. Materials and Methods: For influenza A, we tested 331 subjects with high fever (>38 °C), who arrived at five separate private laboratories over a two-week period after the carnival, via rapid test. One hundred and eighty-eight of them were young adults (17−35 years old), all unvaccinated against influenza A but all immunized against SARS-CoV-2, either through vaccination or previous infection. For the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, we tested 2062 subjects at two time periods, two weeks before and two weeks after the carnival, also via rapid test. Additionally, we examined 42 samples positive for influenza A and 51 samples positive for SARS-CoV-2 for the possibility of co-infection via molecular testing (i.e., RT-PCR). Results: 177/331 (53.5%) subjects tested positive for influenza A, and 109/177 (61.6%) of the positive subjects were young adults, and 93/109 (85.3%) of these subjects were tested in the first week after the carnival. Additionally, 42 samples of those subjects were molecularly tested, and 5 were found negative for influenza A but positive for SARS-CoV-2. Regarding the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, the increase in the positivity index for young adults between the pre-carnival and post-carnival periods was moderate. Conclusions: Our study indicates that the indoor mass gathering of young people during the carnival contributed to the outbreak of an influenza A epidemic and had a moderate but not statistically significant impact on the course of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, corroborating the crucial role of vaccination against the epidemic’s waves. It also showed the need for the use of high-quality rapid tests for their management.
我们调查了希腊帕特雷狂欢节期间年轻人在室内大规模聚集对新冠疫情和甲型流感流行进程的影响。材料与方法：对于甲型流感，我们对331名高烧（>38°C）患者进行了检测，这些患者在狂欢节后的两周内前往五个独立的私人实验室，通过快速检测进行检测。其中188人为年轻人（17 - 35岁），均未接种甲型流感疫苗，但均通过接种疫苗或既往感染获得了针对SARS-CoV-2的免疫。对于新冠疫情，我们在狂欢节前两周和狂欢节后两周这两个时间段对2062名受试者也通过快速检测进行了检测。此外，我们通过分子检测（即逆转录聚合酶链反应）检查了42份甲型流感阳性样本和51份SARS-CoV-2阳性样本是否存在合并感染的可能性。结果：331名受试者中有177人（53.5%）甲型流感检测呈阳性，其中109名（61.6%）阳性受试者为年轻人，这些受试者中有93人（85.3%）在狂欢节后的第一周接受了检测。此外，对这些受试者中的42份样本进行了分子检测，发现5份样本甲型流感呈阴性但SARS-CoV-2呈阳性。关于新冠疫情，狂欢节前和狂欢节后年轻人的阳性指数增幅适中。结论：我们的研究表明，狂欢节期间年轻人在室内大规模聚集促成了甲型流感疫情的爆发，对新冠疫情的进程有适度但无统计学意义的影响，证实了疫苗接种对疫情浪潮的关键作用。研究还表明在疫情管理中使用高质量快速检测的必要性。
