Under-diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 infections among children aged 0–15 years,a nationwide seroprevalence study,Israel, January 2020 to March 2021 |
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| Authors: | Victoria Indenbaum Yaniv Lustig Ella Mendelson Yael Hershkovitz Aharona Glatman-Freedman Lital Keinan-Boker Ravit Bassal |
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| Affiliation: | 1.Central Virology Laboratory, Ministry of Health, Ramat-Gan, Israel; 2.Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, School of Public Health, Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel; 3.Israel Center for Disease Control, Ministry of Health, Sheba Medical Center, Ramat-Gan, Israel; 4.School of Public Health, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel |
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| Abstract: | ![]()
Until recently, children and adolescents were not eligible for COVID-19 vaccination. They may have been a considerable source of SARS-CoV-2 spread. We evaluated SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibody seroprevalence in Israeli children aged 0–15 years from January 2020 to March 2021. Seropositivity was 1.8–5.5 times higher than COVID-19 incidence rates based on PCR testing. We found that SARS-CoV-2 infection among children is more prevalent than previously thought and emphasise the importance of seroprevalence studies to accurately estimate exposure. |
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| Keywords: | SARS-CoV-2 COVID-19 seroprevalence study Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine |
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