In a letter published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the CITF-funded Ab-C Study led by Dr. Prabhat Jha, from the University of Toronto, quantified SARS-CoV-2 incidence during the Omicron (BA.1/1.1) wave among Canadian adult members of the Angus Reid Forum.
Consistent with the ongoing transmission of the Omicron variant, infection-acquired seropositivity increased in the blood donor community gradually throughout March, from 27% to 30%.
A recent serosurvey conducted by Héma-Québec estimates that 27.4% of adults in the province developed infection-acquired antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 between January and mid-March 2022, during the first Omicron wave.
In a study now published in BMJ Open, Drs. Pascal Lavoie and Louise Mâsse and their team at the University of British Columbia found that school staff were not at increased risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection at school, compared to the local community, in the 2020-2021 academic school year.
Using various serological assays in parallel on the same set of samples can produce inconsistent results. A solution is to use composite reference standards and latent class analysis to help decipher true seropositivity.
In their CITF-funded research, Dr. Prabhat Jha and his team leading the Action to Beat Coronavirus (Ab-C) study estimated cumulative seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 during the first two viral waves.
This is a summary, written by members of the CITF Secretariat, of: Charlton CL, Nguyen LT, Bailey A, Fenton J, Plitt SS, Marohn C, Lau C, Hinshaw D, Lutsiak C, Simmonds K, Kanji JN, Zelyas N, Lee N, Mengel M, Tipples G. Pre-Vaccine Positivity of SARS-CoV-2 Antibodies in Alberta, Canada during the First Two [...]
The month of June saw many Canadians rolling up their sleeves for a COVID-19 vaccine. The latest results from the Canadian Blood Services’ serosurvey reflect this, with vaccine-induced seroprevalence soaring to 86% across Canada (excluding the Territories and Quebec), up from 60% the month prior. Most importantly, the gap in vaccine coverage among socioeconomic [...]
CITF-funded SeroTracker carried out a living systematic review of 968 seroprevalence studies that included 9.3 million participants in 74 countries.
Drs. Pascal Lavoie and Louise C. Mâsse and their team at the University of British Columbia have released interim results, soon to be submitted for peer-review, suggesting that school staff are not at increased risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection at school, compared to in the community.