Identification of a super-spreading chain of transmission associated with COVID-19

作者：Ke Hu, Yang Zhao, Mengmei Wang, Qiqi Zeng, Xiaorui Wang, Ming Wang, Zhishui Zheng, Xiaochen Li, Yunting Zhang, Tao Wang, Shaolin Zeng, Yan Jiang, Dan Liu, Wenzhen Yu, Fang Hu, Hongyu Qin, Jingcan Hao, Jian Yuan, Rui Shang, Meng Jiang, Xi Ding, Binghong Zhang, Bingyin Shi, Chengsheng Zhang · 发表于：medRxiv · 年份：2020 · DOI：10.1101/2020.03.19.20026245 · 被引用次数：22 · 研究领域：SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 Research、COVID-19 Clinical Research Studies、Long-Term Effects of COVID-19

Abstract Background Super-spreading events were associated with the outbreaks of SARS and MERS, but their association with the outbreak of COVID-19 remains unknown. Here, we report a super-spreading transmission chain of SARS-CoV-2 involving an index patient, seven cancer patients, 40 health care workers and four family members. Methods We conducted a retrospective study to identify the index patient and the exposed individuals linked to a chain of transmission associated with COVID-19. We collected and analyzed the data on demographic features, exposure history, clinical presentation, laboratory investigation, radiological examination, and disease outcome of these patients. Results We identified the index patient and another presumptive “super-spreader”, who initiated and amplified a super-spreading transmission chain associated with COVID-19, respectively. There were 31 female and 21 male patients in this cohort, and the median age was 37 years (range: 22-79 years). Each of them had an exposure history with the index patient or his close contacts. Approximately 87% (45/52) of the patients had fever or other symptoms, 96% (50/52) had abnormal chest CT-scan findings, 86% of the tested patients (39/45) were positive for SARS-CoV-2 in the nasopharyngeal or throat swab specimen, 85% of the tested patients (29/34) were positive for SARS-CoV-2-specific IgM and/or IgG, 15% of the RT-PCR positive patients were tested negative for the specific IgM and/or IgG at the convalescent phase...