Journal article
Connecting clusters of COVID-19: an epidemiological and serological investigation
SEF Yong, DE Anderson, WE Wei, J Pang, WN Chia, CW Tan, YL Teoh, P Rajendram, MPHS Toh, C Poh, VTJ Koh, J Lum, NAM Suhaimi, PY Chia, MIC Chen, S Vasoo, B Ong, YS Leo, L Wang, VJM Lee
Lancet Infectious Diseases | ELSEVIER SCI LTD | Published : 2020
Abstract
Background: Elucidation of the chain of disease transmission and identification of the source of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infections are crucial for effective disease containment. We describe an epidemiological investigation that, with use of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) serological assays, established links between three clusters of COVID-19. Methods: In Singapore, active case-finding and contact tracing were undertaken for all COVID-19 cases. Diagnosis for acute disease was confirmed with RT-PCR testing. When epidemiological information suggested that people might have been nodes of disease transmission but had recovered from illness, SARS-CoV-2 I..
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Awarded by National Medical Research Council
Funding Acknowledgements
The development of serological tests was funded in part by a joint grant under the National Research Foundation (Singapore) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NRF2016NRFNSFC002-013). The study was partly funded by the National Medical Research Council Singapore) COVID19 research fund (COVID19RF-001). We thank our colleagues who contributed to the investigations, including the COVID-19 epidemiology workgroup, contact tracing team, and hospital epidemiology teams; and Viji Vijayan, Benson Ng, and Velraj Sivalingam, (Duke-National University of Singapore ABSL3 facility) for logistics management and assistance.