COVID-19 Seroconversion Among Front Line Medical and Paramedical Staff in Emergency, Intensive Care Units and Infectious Disease Departments During the 2020 Epidemic (SEROCOV)

The epidemic due to Sars-CoV2 is spreading in France, without it being knowning precisely since when the virus actually circulated on the territory. Data from China but also systematic samples taken from the passengers of the boat Diamond Princess also report almost 50% of asymptomatic forms of Covid-19. Medical and paramedical staff are in fact potentially exposed to the risk of professional contamination, with probably a different risk between the first-line referent hospitals and the others, due to the large number of patients treated in the first, including in the pre-epidemic phase (average of 190 consultants per day at the emergency department Pitié-Salpêtrière for example). Therefore, and despite the application of standard protective measures, it is possible that a certain number of these personnel already have or will contract Covid-19 disease, including in its asymptomatic form. Knowledge of this seroconversion rate, if it is found to be higher than that of the general population, could lead to a review of the measures to protect personnel from other emerging infectious risks.