SARS-CoV-2 Cross-Reactivity in Prepandemic Serum from Rural Malaria-Infected Persons, Cambodia
Jessica E. Manning, Irfan Zaidi, Chanthap Lon, Luz Angela Rosas, Jae-Keun Park, Aiyana Ponce, Jennifer A. Bohl, Sophana Chea, Maria Karkanitsa, Sokunthea Sreng, Rekol Huy, Char Meng Chour, Dominic Esposito, Jeffery K. Taubenberger, Matthew J. Memoli, Kaitlyn Sadtler, Patrick E. Duffy, Fabiano Oliveira
Abstract
S erosurveys for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) of Cambodia have been limited to those screening healthcare workers in 2 urban hospital-based settings (1,2). These antibody-based studies are necessary to determine at-risk populations and direct disease containment measures; however, before informing public health decisions, serologic assays require careful, country-specifi c calibration because several regions report fl uctuating results or high background reactivity in different populations This variability might be attributable to myriad serologic assays, the hypothesized cross-reactivity from common cold-type respiratory coronaviruses (6), previous Plasmodium infections (7,8; S. Lapidus et al., unpub. data, https://www.medrxiv.org/con tent/10.1101/2021.05.10.21256855v1), or previously uncharacterized betacoronaviruses in wildlife popu-lations in the rural GMS (9-11). Although many serologic SARS-CoV-2 investigations are in progress, considering how pathogen diversity in the GMS might infl uence estimations of SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence is prudent.