Clinical characteristics of patients hospitalized for COVID-19 vaccinated with at least two doses in a tertiary care hospital in Turkey

Background. We aimed to examine the characteristics of Turkish patients hospitalized with COVID-19 despite being fully vaccinated. Method. A retrospective, single-center study was conducted in fully vaccinated patients with inactivated whole virion (CoronaVac) and/or BNT162b2 mRNA (Pfizer-BioNTech) vaccines and admitted to the hospital. We evaluated the hospitalized patients regarding the intensive care unit admission and death. A multivariate binary logistic regression analysis was used to determine the factors for mortality. Results. We conducted the study with 541 patients. The mean age was 70.2, and 52.1% of the patients were women. 73.6% of the patients were 65 years or older. The most common comorbidities were hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and COPD. The rate of the alpha variant was 54.3%, and the delta variant was 29.4%. The mortality rate was 45.8%, and the ICU admission rate was 55.3%. The delta (B.1.617.2) variant had higher ICU admission and mortality rate. Patients vaccinated with two-dose Sinovac-CoronaVac had a higher mortality rate. There was no difference between the time between the last vaccination dose to hospitalization, ICU admission, and mortality. LOS in the hospital was longer in ICU and mortality patients. In multivariate binary logistic analysis; age (odds ratio (OR), 1.06; 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) 1.04-1.08- year increase), male gender (OR, 1.57; 95% CI, 1.04-2.38), presence of comorbid diseases (OR, 4; 95% CI, 2-8) and delta variant (OR, 7.3; 95% CI, 4.4- 12.2) and vaccination with CoronaVac plus BioNTech (OR, 0.21; 95% CI, 0.07-0.62) were associated with death. Conclusion. Our results suggest administering a third and fourth dose of mRNA vaccine to subjects vaccinated primarily with two doses of CoronaVac

Seroprevalence of SARS COV-2 anti-nucleocapsid antibodies in Turkish healthcare workers before vaccination schedule: January 2021

Objective: We aimed to assess the seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infection and associated factors among Turkish HCWs, before the Covid-19 vaccination program in January 2021. Material and methods: We performed antibody assessment against SARS-CoV-2 in blood samples from participants using the Elecsys® Anti-SARS-CoV-2 electrochemiluminescence immunoassay. Samples with a cut-off index (COI; signal sample/cut-off) <1.0 were considered negative, samples with ≥1.0 were deemed positive. Results: 714 HCWs, 487 women (68.2%), were included in our study. The mean age of the participants was 35.9 ± 8.4 (min:18, max: 62). 370 (51.8%) HCWs's the antibody level was negative, and 344 (48.2%) was positive. While 47.1% (n=122) of the HCWs with positive RT-PCR were antibody positive, 48.8% (n=222) were negative. There was no statistically significant difference in mean age and age groups (p values ​​0.338 and 0.414, respectively). Also, there was no statistically significant difference in antibody levels by gender (p=0.236). There was no significant difference between antibody positivity according to the presence of comorbidity, and the risk area studied (p=0.556, p=0.335, respectively). There was a statistically significant difference between lung involvement and antibody positivity during Covid-19 infection (p= <0.001). Conclusion: In our study, the seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in HCWs was higher than the average population and approximately fifty percent. Multicenter studies with more HCWs would be helpful to determine overall seroprevalence rates

Vaccination status among patients with the need for emergency hospitalizations related to COVID-19

© 2022 Elsevier Inc.Background: It is thought vaccines allowed for emergency use significantly reduce hospitalizations and emergency room visits. It is a matter of curiosity how many of the patients who come to the emergency department (ED) are vaccinated. We aimed to examine the characteristics of ED patients needing hospitalizations related to moderate and severe COVID-19 by vaccination status. Methods: A retrospective study of 559 rRT-PCR-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection cases with moderate or severe COVID-19 needing hospitalization was performed in August 2021. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed for factors associated with mortality. Results: The mean age of the patients was 60.8 ± 18.1 years old, and 54.2% (n = 303) of the patients were women. The most common comorbidities were hypertension (37.2%), diabetes mellitus (31.1%) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (13.8%), respectively. The number of patients with alpha variant was 399 (71.4%), and delta variant was 83 (14.8%). Fifty point 6% (n = 283) of the patients were fully vaccinated. The total number of patients who died in the study was 114 (20.4%), and the number of patients hospitalized in the intensive care unit was 168 (30.1%). The day between the last dose of vaccine and hospitalization was 117 ± 45.9 days. In multivariate logistic regression analysis: age (odds ratio (OR), 1.05; 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) 1.03–1.08- year increase), male gender (OR, 1.8; 95% CI, 1.1–2.9), presence of at least one comorbid disease (OR, 2; 95% CI, 1.1–3.7) and partial (OR, 0.24;95% CI, 0.09–0.6) and fully vaccinated status (OR, 0.1; 95% CI, 0.05–0.18) were associated with mortality among COVID-19 patients. Conclusions: In this study, age older than 65, unvaccinated, and comorbidities had significantly higher mortality. In multivariate regression analyses, age, vaccination status, comorbidities and the male gender were associated with mortality. Our study did not evaluate the vaccine efficacy but, a lower mortality rate was observed in those fully vaccinated with CoronaVac and Pfizer–BioNTech. Additionally, Alpha, Delta and other variants had the same mortality rates