Screening & Risk Assessment of Healthcare Workers & Infection Control in University & COVID-19 Quarantine Hospitals (SARAH)

Screening and Risk Assessment of Healthcare Workers and Infection Control in University and COVID-19 Quarantine Hospitals Using Real-time Geospatial Mapping for Emergency Healthcare Resource Mobilization and Management

A prospective investigation and screening of all HCWs working in all governmental university hospitals and the affiliated COVID-19 quarantine hospitals using an online survey and laboratory testing using rapid serological tests and PCR. To date, the Ministry of Higher Education has dedicated quarantine hospitals at the following governmental universities: Ain Shams, Cairo, Helwan, Alexandria, Mansoura, Assiut, Minia. This list may be expanded in the future. The project will be pilot tested in Ain Shams University, then extended to other universities subsequently. For risk categorization of HCWs exposed to COVID-19 virus and assessment of infection control needs, an online survey questionnaire will be administered to all HCWs in the governmental university hospitals involved in emergency and intensive care and in the provision of care for COVID-19 patients in the affiliated COVID-19 quarantine hospitals. For confirmation of infection and determination of the secondary infection rate, paired serological samples at baseline and after exposure will be collected. For measuring the validity of the available rapid serological tests, a respiratory sample will be taken for viral detection by RT-PCR. A real-time interactive map using geographical information system programming will be developed to flag hotspots for HCWs' risk and infection control needs that originated from the online survey risk categorization in governmental university and COVID-19 quarantine hospitals. Policy and decision makers will use the map to manage emergency healthcare resource mobilization based on HCWs' risk and infection control needs.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19)

Detailed Description

Research Approach and Methodology

1. Healthcare workers' risk and 2. Infection prevention and control needs: Study design and setting

To fulfill specific objectives, a prospective investigation of all HCWs working in all governmental university hospitals and the affiliated COVID-19 quarantine hospitals.

To date, the Ministry of Higher Education has dedicated quarantine hospitals at the following governmental universities: Ain Shams, Cairo, Helwan, Alexandria, Mansoura, Assiut, Minia. This list may be expanded in the future. The project will be pilot tested in Ain Shams University, then extended to other universities subsequently.

Study population For the purpose of this study, HCWs are defined as all staff in the governmental university hospitals involved in emergency and intensive care and in the provision of care for COVID-19 patients in the affiliated COVID-19 quarantine hospitals. These include those who have been present in the same area as the patient, as well as those who may not have provided direct care to the patient, but who have had contact with the patient's body fluids, potentially contaminated items or environmental surfaces. This includes health care professionals, allied health workers, auxiliary health workers (e.g. cleaning and laundry personnel, x-ray physicians and technicians, clerks, phlebotomists, respiratory therapist, nutritionists, social workers, physical therapists, lab personnel, cleaners, admission/reception clerks, patient transporters, catering staff etc.). Once a case of COVID-19 has been identified in these hospitals, a list of all health care workers with any exposure to COVID-19 patient will need to be drawn up.

Study tool and data collection For risk categorization of HCWs exposed to COVID-19 virus and assessment of infection control needs, an online survey questionnaire will be administered to all HCWs in the governmental university hospitals involved in emergency and intensive care and in the provision of care for COVID-19 patients in the affiliated COVID-19 quarantine hospitals.

The questionnaire will be adapted from the World Health Organization relevant protocols and interim guidance. The sections of the questionnaire will cover:

1. Socio-demographic, background information including history of tobacco use, and pre-existing medical conditions;
2. COVID-19 virus exposure risk assessment for community exposure;
3. COVID-19 virus exposure risk assessment for nosocomial exposure (i.e. contact and possible exposure with the COVID-19 patients since the patient has been admitted to the health care facility);
4. HCW interactions with COVID-19 patient information;
5. HCW activities performed on COVID-19 patient in health care facility;
6. HCW symptoms;
7. Adherence to infection prevention and control measures during health care interactions;
8. Adherence to infection prevention and control measures when performing aerosol-generating procedures (e.g. tracheal intubation, nebulizer treatment, open airway suctioning, collection of sputum, tracheotomy, bronchoscopy, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, etc.); and
9. Accidents with biological material.

This online survey will be completed at baseline and at any future contact or possible exposure with the COVID-19 patients since the patient has been admitted to the hospital.

Other forms will complement the data collected in the online survey questionnaire. The complementary forms include:

• Laboratory form for specimen collection for screening and testing and the relevant results
• Follow-up laboratory form for specimen collection for screening and testing and the relevant results
• HCW symptom diary: Each HCW contact will be asked to record the presence or absence of various signs or symptoms each day for up to 21 days after the administration of the baseline questionnaire (minimum 14 days).
• Outcome form for follow up of HCWs who experience contact or possible exposure with the COVID-19 patients since the patient has been admitted to the hospital.
• Health care facility infection prevention and control form: filled once at baseline for each of the study hospitals.

These will be filled by HCWs, and dedicated teams and coordinators representing the hospital infection control focal points and the hospital management at each of the study hospitals. The forms will be electronically linked to the online survey for instant updates of HCW information using an automatically generated unique serial study number for each HCW to be used across all study forms.

3. Testing for COVID-19 among healthcare workers:

For confirmation of seroconversion, determination of the secondary-infection attack rate, and the proportion of asymptomatic infection paired serological samples will be collected:

1. A baseline serum sample will be collected from all healthcare workers with any exposure (regardless of symptoms), as soon as possible after confirmation of a COVED-19 infected patient in the hospital.
2. A second serum sample will be collected from the same healthcare workers at least 21 days after the collection of the first serum sample

For measuring the validity of the available rapid serological tests:

A respiratory sample will be taken for viral detection by RT-PCR

4. Geospatial mapping of health care workers' risk and infection control needs:

To achieve this aim the following subtasks must be done:

- Build a full stack web-based platform that is integrated with a geographical information system. Where, the platform frontend is a real-time interactive map.

Moreover, the platform backend is a database system to store and manipulate the HCWs' risk and infection control data.

• Build a real-time Signal-R flagging service to track the survey results and put flags on the platform interactive map where these flags represent the location of high HCWs' risk and infection control rate.
• Build a real-time reporting service based on Signal-R and Artificial Intelligence techniques to follow up the survey results and inform the policy and the decision makers with the location and information of the high HCWs' risk and infection control rate.

Furthermore, this reporting service provides more insights on the survey results using the Artificial Intelligence techniques such as the association between the geographical information and the high HCWs' risk rate.

• Study Type: Observational
• Enrollment (Actual): 4040

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• Egypt
  • Non-US
    • Cairo, Non-US, Egypt, 11566
      • Faculty of Medicine Ain Shams University Research Institute- Clinical Research Center

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

• Sampling Method: Non-Probability Sample

Study Population

All staff in the governmental university hospitals involved in emergency and intensive care and in the provision of care for COVID-19 patients in the affiliated COVID-19 quarantine hospitals

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• All staff in the governmental university hospitals involved in emergency and intensive care and in the provision of care for COVID-19 patients in the affiliated COVID-19 quarantine hospitals

Exclusion Criteria:

• None

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Risk categorization of healthcare workers	To determine the risk categorization of HCWs for exposure to a COVID-19 patient using an online survey in governmental university and COVID-19 quarantine hospitals	9 months
COVID-19 infection rate among health care workers	To estimate the COVID-19 infection rate among HCWs in governmental university and quarantine hospitals.	9 months
Risk factors for COVID-19 among health care workers	To determine the risk factors for COVID-19 among health care workers in governmental university and quarantine hospitals.	9 months
Adherence of health care workers to infection prevention	To evaluate adherence of HCWs to infection prevention and control measures using an online survey in governmental university and COVID-19 quarantine hospitals.	9 months
Validity of the available rapid serological test for detecting COVID-19 virus infection	To determine the validity (sensitivity and specificity) of the available rapid serological test for detecting COVID-19 virus infection among HCWs in governmental university and COVID-19 quarantine hospitals.	9 months

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Clinical spectrum of COVID-19	To characterize the risk factors, clinical spectrum, duration and severity of COVID-19 infections among HCWs in governmental university and quarantine hospitals.	9 months
Effectiveness of infection prevention in the health care facility	To evaluate the effectiveness of infection prevention and control measures programs at health facility level using an online survey tool in governmental university and COVID-19 quarantine hospitals	9 months
Emergency infection prevention and control needs	To determine the emergency infection prevention and control needs among HCWs using an online survey tool in governmental university and COVID-19 quarantine hospitals	9 months
Isolation rate and emergency health care worker replacement needs	To determine the isolation rate among HCWs and the need for emergency HCW replacement in governmental university and COVID-19 quarantine hospitals.	9 months
Rate of seroconversion	To determine the serologic response for HCWs with symptomatic and possibly asymptomatic COVID-19 virus infection in governmental university and COVID-19 quarantine hospitals.	9 months

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Ain Shams University
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Aya Mostafa, Ain Shams University

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Mostafa A, Kandil S, El-Sayed MH, Girgis S, Hafez H, Yosef M, Saber S, Ezzelarab H, Ramadan M, Algohary E, Fahmy G, Afifi I, Hassan F, Elsayed S, Reda A, Fattuh D, Mahmoud A, Mansour A, Sabry M, Habeb P, Ebeid FS, Elanwar A, Saleh A, Mansour O, Omar A, El-Meteini M. SARS-CoV-2 seroconversion among 4040 Egyptian healthcare workers in 12 resource-limited healthcare facilities: A prospective cohort study. Int J Infect Dis. 2021 Mar;104:534-542. doi: 10.1016/j.ijid.2021.01.037. Epub 2021 Jan 20.
• Mostafa A, Kandil S, El-Sayed MH, Girgis S, Hafez H, Yosef M, Saber S, Ezzelarab H, Ramadan M, Afifi I, Hassan F, Elsayed S, Reda A, Fattuh D, Mahmoud A, Mansour A, Sabry M, Habeb P, Ebeid FS, Saleh A, Mansour O, Omar A, El-Meteini M. Universal COVID-19 screening of 4040 health care workers in a resource-limited setting: an Egyptian pilot model in a university with 12 public hospitals and medical centers. Int J Epidemiol. 2021 Mar 3;50(1):50-61. doi: 10.1093/ije/dyaa173.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): April 22, 2020
• Primary Completion (Actual): October 1, 2020
• Study Completion (Actual): December 1, 2020

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: April 13, 2020
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: April 14, 2020
• First Posted (Actual): April 16, 2020

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): April 20, 2021
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: April 17, 2021
• Last Verified: April 1, 2021

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Coronavirus Infections; Coronaviridae Infections; Nidovirales Infections; RNA Virus Infections; Virus Diseases; Infections; Respiratory Tract Infections; Respiratory Tract Diseases; Pneumonia, Viral; Pneumonia; Lung Diseases; COVID-19
• Other Study ID Numbers: FMASU P18a/ 2020

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No