Abstract
On December 31, 2019, an outbreak of lower respiratory infections was documented in Wuhan caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Since the beginning, SARS-CoV-2 has caused many infections among healthcare workers (HCWs) worldwide. Aims of this study were: a. to compare the distribution among the HCWs and the general population of SARS-CoV-2 infections in Western Sicily and Italy; b. to describe the characteristics of HCWs infected with SARS-CoV-2 in the western Sicilian healthcare context during the first wave of the epidemic diffusion in Italy. Incidence and mean age of HCWs infected with SARS-CoV-2 were comparable in Western Sicily and in the whole Italian country. The 97.6% of infections occurred in HCWs operating in non-coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) working environments, while an equal distribution of cases between hospital and primary care services context was documented. Nurses and healthcare assistants, followed by physicians, were the categories more frequently infected by SARS-CoV-2. The present study suggests that healthcare workers are easily infected compared to the general population but that often infection could equally occur in hospital and non-hospital settings. Safety of HCWs in counteracting the COVID-19 pandemic must be strengthened in hospital [adequate provision of personal protective equipment (PPE), optimization of human resources, implementation of closed and independent groups of HCWs, creation of traffic control building and dedicated areas in every healthcare context] and non-hospital settings (influenza vaccination, adequate psychophysical support, including refreshments during working shifts, adequate rest, and family support).
Highlights
On December 31, 2019, an outbreak of unexplained lower respiratory infections was documented in Wuhan, the largest metropolitan area in China’s Hubei Province, and reported for the first time to the WHO National Office in China [1]
Across-sectional study was conducted in Western Sicily, to date, a COVID-19 low-incidence area accounting for about 47.5% of the total Sicilian resident population (4,968,410 inhabitants), to highlight the characteristics of healthcare workers (HCWs) infected with SARS-CoV-2 during the period between February 26, 2020, and May 3, 2020
Data obtained from the local health facilities (LHFs) were compared with data on the general population available from the open-access database provided by the Italian national surveillance system for COVID-19 epidemic and with data on HCWs provided by the Italian National Health Institute [6]
Summary
On December 31, 2019, an outbreak of unexplained lower respiratory infections was documented in Wuhan, the largest metropolitan area in China’s Hubei Province, and reported for the first time to the WHO National Office in China [1]. The etiology of this disease was attributed to a new virus belonging to the family of coronaviruses (CoVs), renamed severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) [2]. About 73 million cases of SARS-CoV-2 infection and more than 1.6 million deaths due to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have been observed worldwide [4]. In Europe, there has been an epidemiological transition of the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic, with a sharp drop to 43 years in the average age of the population contracting the infection [5, 6]
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