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சுருக்கம்

COVID-19 Infection among Health Care Workers: Experience in Base Hospital Wathupitiwala, Sri Lanka

Samaranayake WAMP, Jayawardhana GPC, Roshan ALL, Wijayawardena MAM, Siraj MI

Background: Frontline Health Care Workers (HCWs) are at an increased risk of the acquisition of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 infection (SARS CoV-2) due to their close interaction with infected patients. However, the extent of COVID-19 infection among HCWs in Sri Lanka is understudied.

Objectives: This study determined the incidence, demography, and risk exposure behavior of HCWs who tested positive for SARS CoV-2 at Base Hospital Wathupitiwala. Furthermore, the rate of acquisition of SARS CoV-2 following COVISHIELD/ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 and Sinopharm /BBIBP-CorV vaccines in HCWs were studied.

Methods: A retrospective cross-sectional descriptive analysis was conducted from May 2021 to August 2021 for a total of 818 HCWs.

Results: Hundred and twenty-four HCWs (15.16%) were tested positive for COVID-19. The mean age of infected HCWs was 46.27 years and the majority was females (74.19%). The majority of the HCWs were tested by the infection control unit as symptomatic screening (70.16%). No source was identified in most of them (34.68%). Thirty-five HCWs (28.23%) had acquired infection during a hospital setting or had a high-risk exposure in recent history. The vast majority of HCWs (95.97%) presented as mild to asymptomatic disease that followed an uneventful recovery. Among the five HCWs required therapeutic oxygen supplementation, two unvaccinated HCWs succumbed to the infection. The rate of breakthrough infection among HCWs was 8.93%. The acquisition of disease was significantly higher among unvaccinated HCWs than partially (p<0.0001) or fully vaccinated (p<0.0001) HCWs with either type of vaccine.

Conclusion: Protecting HCWs remains a challenge in resource poor settings. The risk of COVID-19 infection fueled by very contagious circulating variants is continuously high even though vaccination has shown clear benefits in preventing mortality and severe infection in HCWs. Therefore, COVID-19 vaccination should be offered to all HCWs while ensuring continuous infection control measures in the hospital setting.