Seroprevalence of IgG Antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) in Primary Health Care Workers and Their Household Contacts

Many uncertainties remain regarding the epidemiological and clinical characteristics of COVID-19, including the number of people exposed to the disease, the persistence of the humoral response and its associated neutralisation capacity in recovered patients, and the long-term health consequences of the infection. The French national COVID-SeroPRIM survey aims to estimate the seroprevalence of IgG antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 in four populations of primary care health professionals: primary care physicians (general practitioners and paediatricians), health professionals working in city pharmacies (pharmacists and compounders) and in dental practices (dentists and dental assistants). Indeed, the majority of published studies target healthcare professionals in hospitals. It is therefore essential to provide new knowledge on the exposure of primary care workers to the virus in order to assess the impact of the pandemic, the level of immunity and the risk factors for exposure to the virus. These data will be very useful for public health decision makers to better adapt health protocols and provide useful information to better guide future vaccination campaigns. Assuming that vaccination against COVID-19 will start in January 2021, data on the vaccination rate of health professionals and their households will also be collected and made available to policy makers in a timely manner. This study will be conducted in collaboration with four primary care research and/or monitoring networks: the Sentinelles network (general practitioners), the Association de Formation Professionnelle en Pédiatrie (Association for Professional Training in Paediatrics), IQVIA (general practitioners and pharmacies), and the Réseau de Recherche Clinique en Odontologie Libérale (ReCOL, dental surgeons) Seroprevalence will be estimated using a high-sensitivity ELISA designed to detect SARS-CoV-2 specific IgG antibodies in humoral fluid and a high-specificity seroneutralisation test to assess seropositivi