COVID-19 qPCR testing in women admitted for delivery in Spain: Is universal testing worthy?: A commentary
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CORRESPONDENCE
COVID‑19 qPCR testing in women admitted for delivery in Spain: Is universal testing worthy?: A commentary A. M. Cubo1 · A. Villalba‑Yarza1 · M. V. Lapresa Alcalde1 · F. J. Goenaga1 · V. García‑Mínguez1 · M. J. Doyague1 · J. M. Sayagues2 Received: 25 June 2020 / Accepted: 24 August 2020 © Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Keywords Covid-19 · SARS-CoV-2 · qPCR test · Women admitted for delivery
Commentary The current coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic, caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is expanding globally becoming a so serious public health emergency that drastic measures across all continents, including nationwide lockdowns and border closures have been necessary to slow down the spreading of the disease. Pregnant women and their fetuses represent a high-risk population during infectious disease outbreaks and they are a challenge in terms of health care [1]. Spain has been one of the most affected countries by the pandemic, with more than 243,000 positive cases and 27,000 deaths at the end of May [2]. Castilla y León has been the third with the highest number of cases (19,104 infections and 1928 deaths on June 11th) among the 17 autonomous communities of Spain. Of the nine provinces that make up the Community of Castilla y León, Salamanca is the second both in number of infections (4280) and deaths (369, 19% of the whole Community) [3]. Salamanca University Hospital is one of the largest hospitals in the Community, with 2000 deliveries per year on average. From the beginning of the pandemic, testing with nasopharyngeal swabs and a quantitative polymerase-chainreaction (qPCR) was performed in the Emergency Department on patients with Covid-19 disease symptoms and an outpatient program was implemented to trace positive * A. M. Cubo [email protected] 1
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Salamanca University Hospital and IBSAL, Paseo San Vicente 58‑182, 37007 Salamanca, Spain
Department of Pathology, Salamanca University Hospital and IBSAL, Salamanca, Spain
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patient’s contacts. As evidence on the existence of a large number of asymptomatic positive patients who could act as carriers was reported [4, 5], the Obstetrics Department asked the qPCR test to be performed on all patients admitted both for delivery and to the obstetrics ward, to guarantee admission in a safe environment and to reduce the chance of transmission to other patients and to the healthcare staff. From 23/03, the qPCR test was carried out to detect SARS-CoV-2 in all women admitted for delivery. Since then there have been 366 deliveries up to 11/06. Of these, 25 patients (15%) have tested positive for the virus. Twelve of them were detected by qPCR on admission for delivery being all of them asymptomatic. It should be noted that two of these patients were referred from a private centre where serological screening with IgM-positive antibodies was carried out. On admission, both women tested negative for qPCR; however, considering t
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