High Prevalence of Undocumented SARS-CoV-2 Infections in the Pediatric Population of the Tyrolean District of Schwaz

Abstract

Complementing the adult seroprevalence data collected at the time of the rapid SARS-CoV-2 mass vaccination in the district of Schwaz in 2021, we set out to establish the seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 among the pediatric population of the district. A total of 369 children, mean age 9.9 (SD 3.4), participated in the study, answering a structured questionnaire on the history of SARS-CoV-2 infection, household contacts, symptoms and history of vaccination. We determined binding and neutralizing antibody levels using plasma samples provided. We estimated the overall prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infection in the general pediatric population at the time of the study using the census data from Statistik Austria and daily reports of officially confirmed cases. Excluding study participants who reported a history of PCR-confirmed infection, the age-standardized seroprevalence of previously unknown SARS-CoV-2 infection among the general pediatric population of the district was 27% (95% CI: 26.1–27.8). Adding this to the officially documented cases, the true overall prevalence was 32.8% (95% CI: 31.9–33.6) in contrast to the officially documented 8.0% (95% CI: 7.5–8.5) by June 2021. This translated into a proportion of 75.7% (95% CI: 74.4–77.0) of cases being officially undocumented, suggesting a high extent of silent SARS-CoV-2 infections in the pediatric population and possibly silent transmission.

Anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgG Seroprevalence in Tyrol, Austria, among 28,768 Blood Donors between May 2022 and March 2023

“…Taken together, these data indicate clearly that antibody titres are highest in individuals that were infected and have received multiple doses of vaccines. All other prior population-based seroepidemiological studies in Austria, were conducted in 2021 before Omicron and its subvariants became predominant [ 3 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 ]. Since then, a large number of SARS-CoV-2 infections may have remained undetected due to (1) the decline of diagnostic testing, and (2) the growing number of asymptomatic infections [ 18 , 19 , 20 ].…”

Detection of infectious SARS-CoV-2 in ocular samples is linked to viral load in the nasopharynx

“…In line, SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2 were detected in previous studies in rare events via PCR in ocular samples of infected patients ( Leong et al., 2004 ; Loon et al., 2004 ; Al-Sharif et al., 2021 ). Conjunctivitis and other ocular pathologies have also been reported as symptoms associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection ( Cavalleri et al., 2020 ; Wu et al., 2020 ; Harthaller et al., 2022 ). However, still little is known about ocular infection of SARS-CoV-2.…”