Publication: COVID-19 Diagnosed by Real-Time Reverse Transcriptase-Polymerase Chain Reaction in Nasopharyngeal Specimens of Suspected Cases in a Tertiary Care Center: A Descriptive Cross-sectional Study
Date
2021
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Nepal Medical Association
Abstract
Abstract:
Introduction: The emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 pandemic is critically challenging the whole world. The real-time reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction is the most widely used confirmatory test for COVID-19 detection. This study aimed to find out the prevalence of COVID-19 infection detected by gold standard reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction test in a tertiary care center of Nepal.
Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in Karnali Academy of Health Sciences from May to August 2020 after taking ethical approval from the Institutional Review Committee of Karnali Academy of Health Sciences, Jumla. Convenient sampling was used. A total of 361 participants enrolled in this study who have done real-time reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction for screening of COVID-19 infection. Also, a designated questionnaire was obtained from persons with a travel history and close contact. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences software was used for the statistical analysis. Point estimate at 95% Confidence Interval was calculated along with frequency and proportion for binary data.
Results: The prevalence of COVID-19 was 167 (46.3%) (95% Confidence Interval= 41.16-51.44) by real-time reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction test. Out of 361 samples, 339 (93.9%) were male and 22 (6%) were female. The highest frequency of the participants belongs to the age groups of 20-40 years.
Conclusions: The findings showed a high prevalence of COVID-19 detected by reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction test. Further studies are necessary to improve the precision of prevalence estimations.
Description
Narayani Maharjan
Program & Department of Clinical Laboratory Medicine, Center for Gene Diagnosis, Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan, China and Department of Molecular Laboratory, Karnali Academy of Health Sciences, Jumla, Nepal
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8930-7409
Niresh Thapa
Department of General Practice and Emergency Medicine, Karnali Academy of Health Sciences, Jumla, Nepal
Bibek Pun Magar
Department of Clinical Biochemistry, Karnali Academy of Health Sciences, Jumla, Nepal
Muna Maharjan
School of Nursing and Midwifery, Karnali Academy of Health Sciences, Jumla, Nepal
Jiancheng Tu
Program & Department of Clinical Laboratory Medicine, Center for Gene Diagnosis, Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan, China
Keywords
COVID-19, prevalence, reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2