Personnel protection strategy for healthcare workers in Wuhan during the COVID-19 epidemic

Objective: To identify the effectiveness of a personnel protection strategy in protection of healthcare workers from SARS-CoV-2 infection. Design: During the COVID-19 pandemic, 943 healthcare staff sent from Guangzhou to Wuhan to care for patients with suspected/confirmed COVID-19 received infection precaution training before their mission and were equipped with Level 2/3 personal protective equipment (PPE), in accordance with guidelines from the National Health Commission of China. We conducted a serological survey on the cumulative attack rate of SARS-CoV-2 among the healthcare workers sent to Wuhan and compared the seropositive rate to that in local healthcare workers from Wuhan and Jingzhou. Results: Serial tests for SARS-CoV-2 RNA and tests for SARS-CoV-2 immunoglobulin M and G after the 6-8 week mission revealed a zero cumulative attack rate. Among the local healthcare workers in Wuhan and Jingzhou of Hubei Province, 2.5% (113 out of 4495) and 0.32% (10 out of 3091) had RT-PCR confirmed COVID-19, respectively. The seropositivity for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies (IgG, IgM, or both IgG/IgM positive) was 3.4% (53 out of 1571) in local healthcare workers from Wuhan with Level 2/3 PPE working in isolation areas and 5.4% (126 out of 2336) in healthcare staff with Level 1 PPE working in non-isolation medical areas, respectively. Conclusions and relevance: Our study confirmed that adequate training/PPE can protect medical personnel against SARS-CoV-2.