@Article{info:doi/10.2196/28519,
author="Sahoo, Durgesh Prasad
and Singh, Arvind Kumar
and Sahu, Dinesh Prasad
and Pradhan, Somen Kumar
and Patro, Binod Kumar
and Batmanabane, Gitanjali
and Mishra, Baijayantimala
and Behera, Bijayini
and Das, Ambarish
and Dora, G Susmita
and Anand, L.
and Azhar, S M
and Nair, Jyolsna
and Panigrahi, Sasmita
and Akshaya, R.
and Sahoo, Bimal Kumar
and Sahu, Subhakanta
and Sahoo, Suchismita",
title="Hospital-Based Contact Tracing of Patients With COVID-19 and Health Care Workers During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Eastern India: Cross-sectional Study",
journal="JMIR Form Res",
year="2021",
month="Oct",
day="21",
volume="5",
number="10",
pages="e28519",
keywords="COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; risk categorization; health care personnel; virus transmission; contact tracing; pandemic; risk stratification",
abstract="Background: The contact tracing and subsequent quarantining of health care workers (HCWs) are essential to minimizing the further transmission of SARS-CoV-2 infection and mitigating the shortage of HCWs during the COVID-19 pandemic situation. Objective: This study aimed to assess the yield of contact tracing for COVID-19 cases and the risk stratification of HCWs who are exposed to these cases. Methods: This was an analysis of routine data that were collected for the contact tracing of COVID-19 cases at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Bhubaneswar, in Odisha, India. Data from March 19 to August 31, 2020, were considered for this study. COVID-19 cases were admitted patients, outpatients, or HCWs in the hospital. HCWs who were exposed to COVID-19 cases were categorized, per the risk stratification guidelines, as high-risk contacts or low-risk contacts Results: During contact tracing, 3411 HCWs were identified as those who were exposed to 360 COVID-19 cases. Of these 360 cases, 269 (74.7{\%}) were either admitted patients or outpatients, and 91 (25.3{\%}) were HCWs. After the risk stratification of the 3411 HCWs, 890 (26.1{\%}) were categorized as high-risk contacts, and 2521 (73.9{\%}) were categorized as low-risk contacts. The COVID-19 test positivity rates of high-risk contacts and low-risk contacts were 3.8{\%} (34/890) and 1.9{\%} (48/2521), respectively. The average number of high-risk contacts was significantly higher when the COVID-19 case was an admitted patient (number of contacts: mean 6.6) rather than when the COVID-19 case was an HCW (number of contacts: mean 4.0) or outpatient (number of contacts: mean 0.2; P=.009). Similarly, the average number of high-risk contacts was higher when the COVID-19 case was admitted in a non--COVID-19 area (number of contacts: mean 15.8) rather than when such cases were admitted in a COVID-19 area (number of contacts: mean 0.27; P<.001). There was a significant decline in the mean number of high-risk contacts over the study period (P=.003). Conclusions: Contact tracing and risk stratification were effective and helped to reduce the number of HCWs requiring quarantine. There was also a decline in the number of high-risk contacts during the study period. This indicates the role of the implementation of hospital-based, COVID-19--related infection control strategies. The contact tracing and risk stratification approaches that were designed in this study can also be implemented in other health care settings. ",
issn="2561-326X",
doi="10.2196/28519",
url="https://formative.jmir.org/2021/10/e28519",
url="https://doi.org/10.2196/28519",
url="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34596569"
}