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Nurses, doctors, hospital porters; they are on the front line in this pandemic. Nearly 1 in 5 of all Covid-19 cases in Ireland has been in healthcare workers.
10,172 have been diagnosed with coronavirus, 4,210 have required hospitalization and 529 have been treated in intensive care.
Now, a study of more than 1,200 employees at one of Dublin’s largest hospitals has found evidence that more staff were infected than actually tested positive for the virus.
Consultant clinical microbiologist Dr. Anna Rose Prior conducted the study at Tallaght Hospital.
“18% of our staff actually had evidence of a previous Covid-19 infection and that compared to a rate of 12% of those who had a confirmed previous infection.”
A third of the hospital participated in the study, including nurses, doctors and administrative staff. Antibody blood tests were carried out for three months.
Antibodies are a protective protein produced by the immune system. They respond to a foreign substance, such as a virus, to remove it from the body.
Those who participated in the study and were found to have antibodies will be monitored in the future.
“We can look at them in the future to see what happens to them, in terms of reinfection rates and re-exposure rates, and see how those antibodies go down.”
The HSE is conducting a similar study. He invited healthcare workers from two large acute care hospitals, St James’s Hospital, Dublin and University Hospital Galway, to undergo the same tests to determine the presence of Covid-19 antibodies.
Blood tests were carried out over the last two weeks and the first results are expected in late November.
The Irish Organization of Nurses and Midwives said it was concerned about the findings of the Tallaght Hospital study.
“In the case of the elderly, the service staff are tested continuously and repeatedly; we believe that the same needs to happen in the community and in the acute care hospital system,” said Tony Fitzpatrick, director of relations industrial.
He also asked for the ‘derogation’, in which a health services manager can request that a person who has been in close contact with someone with Covid-19 go to work, to change.
“A healthcare worker should be treated the same as any other member of the public, follow public health advice, isolate himself and restrain his movements for 14 days. That should apply to healthcare workers as well.”
The Tallaght study, while offering a clearer picture, should not offer any assurance about immunity to Covid-19.
“We don’t want people to have false security or change their practices to become more lax and think that I am fine now that I will not be infected again.
“We know that antibodies go down, there is a London study showing that after a short number of months the responses go down,” said microbiologist Dr. Anna Rose Prior.
“We now hope that with all the measures that we have introduced, more generalized tests, use of masks for all interactions with the patient, it is to be expected that in the future the rate of acquisition of infections will reduce,” said Dr. Prior.
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