Volume 20, Number 4—April 2014
Research
Contact Investigation for Imported Case of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, Germany
, Annette Litterst, Christian Drosten, Michael Seilmaier, Merle Böhmer1, Petra Graf, Hermann Gold, Clemens-Martin Wendtner, Arina Zanuzdana, Lars Schaade, Walter Haas, and Udo Buchholz
Table
Results of contact investigation of patient with imported MERS-CoV infection, Germany, 2013*
| Data category | No. (%) contacts† | No. (%) close-distance contacts, n = 69‡ | No. (%) less-close- distance contacts, n = 14‡ | p value§ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Contacts, n = 83 | 0.103 | |||
| Physicians | 16 (19) | 11 (69) | 5 (31) | |
| Nursing staff | 25 (30) | 24 (1) | 1 (4) | |
| Laboratory personnel | 20 (24) | 17 (85) | 3 (15) | |
| Family members | 4 (5) | 4 (100) | 0 | |
| Other |
18 (22) |
13 (72) |
5 (28) |
|
| Response to questionnaire | 61 (73) | 55 (90) | 6 (10) | 0.004 |
| Aerosol exposure |
15 (18) |
15 (100) |
0 |
0.054 |
| Symptoms | 0.006 | |||
| Symptomatic | 10 (12) | 9 (90) | 1 (10) | |
| Nonsymptomatic¶ | 71 (86) | 60 (85) | 11 (15) | |
| Unknown |
2 (2) |
0 |
2 (100) |
|
| Swab samples, symptomatic contacts, n = 10 | 0.725 | |||
| Swab sample collected | 9 (90) | 8 (89) | 1 (11) | |
| No swab sample collected |
1 (10) |
1 (100) |
0 |
|
| PCR results for symptomatic contacts with swab samples, n = 9 | NA | |||
| MERS-CoV positive | 0 | NA | NA | |
| MERS-CoV negative | 9 (100) | 8 (89) | 1 (11) | |
| HCoV-NL63 positive | 1 (11) | 1 (100) | 0 | |
| Rhinovirus positive |
2 (22) |
2 (100) |
0 |
|
| Serologic test results | 0.007 | |||
| MERS-CoV positive | 0 | NA | NA | |
| MERS-CoV negative | 60 (72) | 54 (90) | 6 (10) | |
| Not done |
23 (28) |
15 (65) |
8 (35) |
|
| Serologic testing among symptomatic contacts, n = 10 | 0.107 | |||
| MERS-CoV positive | 0 | NA | NA | |
| MERS-CoV negative | 7 (70) | 7 (100) | 0 | |
| Not done |
3 (30) |
2 (67) |
1 (33) |
|
| Serologic testing among nonsymptomatic¶ contacts, n = 71 | 0.095 | |||
| MERS-CoV positive | 0 | NA | NA | |
| MERS-CoV negative | 53 (75) | 47 (89) | 6 (11) | |
| Not done | 18 (25) | 13 (72) | 5 (28) | |
*Definitions of close-distance and less-close-distance contacts provided in article text. MERS-CoV, Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus; NA, not applicable.
†Percentages are of contacts (N = 83) unless otherwise indicated.
‡Percentages are of category total.
§Probability that the distribution as indicated occurs by chance given the column and row totals.
¶Nonsymptomatic contacts are asymptomatic persons and those who were symptomatic before exposure.
1Postgraduate Training for Applied Epidemiology, Robert Koch Institute, Berlin, Germany, associated with European Programme for Intervention Epidemiology Training, European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, Stockholm, Sweden.