Emerg Infect Dis. 2023 Nov;29(11):2292-2297. doi: 10.3201/eid2911.230492.
Earlier global detection of novel SARS-CoV-2 variants gives governments more time to respond. However, few countries can implement timely national surveillance, resulting in gaps in monitoring. The United Kingdom implemented large-scale community and hospital surveillance, but experience suggests it might be faster to detect new variants through testing England arrivals for surveillance. We developed simulations of emergence and importation of novel variants with a range of infection hospitalization rates to the United Kingdom. We compared time taken to detect the variant though testing arrivals at England borders, hospital admissions, and the general community. We found that sampling 10%-50% of arrivals at England borders could confer a speed advantage of 3.5-6 weeks over existing community surveillance and 1.5-5 weeks (depending on infection hospitalization rates) over hospital testing. Directing limited global capacity for surveillance to highly connected ports could speed up global detection of novel SARS-CoV-2 variants.
早期全球检测新型 SARS-CoV-2 变异株可使政府有更多时间来应对。然而，很少有国家能够实施及时的国家监测，从而导致监测存在差距。英国实施了大规模的社区和医院监测，但经验表明，通过对英国入境者进行监测检测来发现新变异株可能更快。我们对具有一系列感染住院率的新型变异株的出现和输入进行了模拟。我们比较了通过在英国边境对入境者、住院病人和普通社区进行检测来检测变异株所需的时间。我们发现，对英国边境入境者的 10%-50%进行采样，可以比现有的社区监测提前 3.5-6 周，比医院检测提前 1.5-5 周（具体取决于感染住院率）。将有限的全球监测能力集中用于高度关联的港口，可以加快全球对新型 SARS-CoV-2 变异株的检测。
