SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence among parturient women in Philadelphia
Dustin D. Flannery, Sigrid Gouma, Miren B. Dhudasia, Sagori Mukhopadhyay, Madeline R. Pfeifer, Emily C. Woodford, Jeffrey S. Gerber, Claudia P. Arevalo, Marcus J. Bolton, Madison E. Weirick, Eileen C. Goodwin, Elizabeth M. Anderson, Allison R. Greenplate, Justin Kim, Nicholas Han, Ajinkya Pattekar, Jeanette Dougherty, Oliva Kuthuru, Divij Mathew, Amy E. Baxter, Laura A. Vella, JoEllen Weaver, Anurag Verma, Rita Leite, Jeffrey S. Morris, Daniel J. Rader, Michal A. Elovitz, E. John Wherry, Karen M. Puopolo, Scott E. Hensley
Abstract
Limited data are available for pregnant women affected by SARS-CoV-2. Serological tests are critically important for determining SARS-CoV-2 exposures within both individuals and populations. We validated a SARS-CoV-2 spike receptor binding domain serological test using 834 pre-pandemic samples and 31 samples from COVID-19 recovered donors. We then completed SARS-CoV-2 serological testing of 1,293 parturient women at two centers in Philadelphia from April 4 to June 3, 2020. We found 80/1,293 (6.2%) of parturient women possessed IgG and/or IgM SARS-CoV-2-specific antibodies. We found race/ethnicity differences in seroprevalence rates, with higher rates in Black/non-Hispanic and Hispanic/Latino women. Of the 72 seropositive women who also received nasopharyngeal polymerase chain reaction testing during pregnancy, 46 (64%) were positive. Continued serologic surveillance among pregnant women may inform perinatal clinical practices and can potentially be used to estimate exposure to SARS-CoV-2 within the community.