Sci Immunol. 2020 Jul 29;5(49):eabd5709. doi: 10.1126/sciimmunol.abd5709. | PubMed

Dustin D Flannery^1,2,3, Sigrid Gouma⁴, Miren B Dhudasia^1,3, Sagori Mukhopadhyay^1,2,3, Madeline R Pfeifer¹, Emily C Woodford¹, Jeffrey S Gerber^2,3,5, Claudia P Arevalo⁴, Marcus J Bolton⁴, Madison E Weirick⁴, Eileen C Goodwin⁴, Elizabeth M Anderson⁴, Allison R Greenplate^6,7, Justin Kim^6,7, Nicholas Han^6,7, Ajinkya Pattekar^6,8, Jeanette Dougherty^6,7, Oliva Kuthuru^6,7, Divij Mathew^6,7, Amy E Baxter^6,7, Laura A Vella^5,6, JoEllen Weaver⁹, Anurag Verma¹⁰, Rita Leite¹¹, Jeffrey S Morris¹², Daniel J Rader^9,10, Michal A Elovitz^6,11, E John Wherry^6,7, Karen M Puopolo^13,2,3, Scott E Hensley^14,6

1. Division of Neonatology, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA.
2. Department of Pediatrics, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA.
3. Center for Pediatric Clinical Effectiveness, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA.
4. Department of Microbiology, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA.
5. Division of Infectious Diseases, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA.
6. Institute for Immunology, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA.
7. Department of Systems Pharmacology and Translational Therapeutics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA.
8. Division of Gastroenterology, Department of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA.
9. Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA.
10. Departments of Genetics and Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA.
11. Maternal and Child Health Research Center, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA.
12. Department of Biostatistics Epidemiology and Informatics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA.
13. Division of Neonatology, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA. hensley@pennmedicine.upenn.edu karen.puopolo@pennmedicine.upenn.edu.
14. Department of Microbiology, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA. hensley@pennmedicine.upenn.edu karen.puopolo@pennmedicine.upenn.edu.

Abstract

Limited data are available for pregnant women affected by SARS-CoV-2. Serological tests are critically important for determining SARS-CoV-2 exposures within both individuals and populations. We validated a SARS-CoV-2 spike receptor binding domain serological test using 834 pre-pandemic samples and 31 samples from COVID-19 recovered donors. We then completed SARS-CoV-2 serological testing of 1,293 parturient women at two centers in Philadelphia from April 4 to June 3, 2020. We found 80/1,293 (6.2%) of parturient women possessed IgG and/or IgM SARS-CoV-2-specific antibodies. We found race/ethnicity differences in seroprevalence rates, with higher rates in Black/non-Hispanic and Hispanic/Latino women. Of the 72 seropositive women who also received nasopharyngeal polymerase chain reaction testing during pregnancy, 46 (64%) were positive. Continued serologic surveillance among pregnant women may inform perinatal clinical practices and can potentially be used to estimate exposure to SARS-CoV-2 within the community.

Presented By Dustin Flannery and Sigrid Gouma