Zhongguo gonggong weisheng (Dec 2023)

Characteristics of 110 novel SARS-CoV-2 variant infections confirmed during February – May, 2023 in a district of Beijing

  • Ruiqi HAO,
  • Zhiyuan XU,
  • Xiaofeng ZHANG,
  • Jianrong CHEN,
  • Meng ZHANG,
  • Xiaohong JIANG,
  • Xiao QI

DOI
https://doi.org/10.11847/zgggws1142905
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 39, no. 12
pp. 1579 – 1584

Abstract

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ObjectiveTo describe clinical and epidemiological characteristics of cases infected with novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) variant diagnosed during February – May, 2023 in a district of Beijing city for effective containment of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic.MethodsThe surveyed cases were 110 laboratory-confirmed novel SARS-CoV-2 variant infections diagnosed in sampling inspection and surveillance at customs departments and medical institutions and reported to health agency of Chaoyang district of Beijing city during February – May, 2023. The collected data were analyzed with descriptive statistics. The novel SARS-CoV-2 variant refers to the SARS-CoV-2 strains not detected previously in the district (except for BA.5.2/ BF.7 and their sub-variants).ResultsThe 110 cases were consisted of 64 males and 46 females, with a median age of 32 years; compared to those in the local cases, significantly higher median age and proportions of COVID19 vaccination and secondary attack were observed in the 72 (65.45% of all the cases) imported cases (P 0.05). The epidemiological survey among the 110 cases identified totally 252 intimately close contacts and the secondary attack rate in the close contacts was 12.70%; the secondary attack rate was higher in the contacts of non-XBB variant infections than in the contacts of XBB variant infections.ConclusionDuring February to May 2023 in a district of Beijing, the majority of reported novel SARS-CoV-2 variant cases were imported cases; most of the local cases were initial infections; the proportion of symptomatic cases was higher in initial infections than that in the reinfections but the initial infections had a longer duration of negative seroconversion of SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid or antigen than the reinfections; the secondary attack rate was higher in the contacts of non-XBB variant infections than in the contacts of XBB variant infections.

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