Article
Implemented occupational health surveillance limits the spread of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron at the workplace
Registro en:
GESTO, João Silveira Moledo et al. Implemented occupational health surveillance limits the spread of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron at the workplace. Frontiers in Medicine, v. 9, 910176, p. 1 - 9, Aug. 2022.
2298-858X
10.3389/fmed.2022.910176
Autor
Gesto, João Silveira Moledo
Cabanelas, Adriana
Farjun, Bruna
Santos, Monique Cristina dos
Fidalgo Neto, Antonio A.
Kuriyama, Sergio N.
Souza, Thiago Moreno L.
Resumen
The global spread of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2
(SARS-CoV-2) has put an enormous pressure on human societies, at both
health and economic levels. Early diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2, the causative
agent of 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19), has proved an efficient
method to rapidly isolate positive individuals and reduce transmission rates,
thus alleviating its negative impact on society’s well-being and economic
growth. In this work, through a coordinated and centralized effort to monitor
SARS-CoV-2 circulation in companies from the State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil,
we have detected and linked an early rise of infection rates in January 2022 to
the introduction of the Omicron variant of concern (VoC) (BA.1). Interestingly,
when the Omicron genomic isolates were compared to correlates from public
datasets, it was revealed that introduction events were multiple, with possible
migration routes mapping to: Mali; Oman and United States; and Italy, Latin
America, and United States. In addition, we have built a haplotype network
with our genomic dataset and found no strong evidence of transmission
chains, between and within companies. Considering Omicron’s particularly
high transmissibility, and that most of our samples (>87%) arose from 3 out of
10 companies, these findings suggest that workers from such environments
were exposed to SARS-CoV-2 outside their company boundaries. Thus,
using a mixed strategy in which quick molecular diagnosis finds support
in comprehensive genomic analysis, we have shown that a successfully
implemented occupational health program should contribute to document
emerging VoC and to limit the spread of SARS-CoV-2 at the workplace.