SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence among parturient women in Philadelphia

Flannery, Dustin D.; Gouma, Sigrid; Dhudasia, Miren B.; Mukhopadhyay, Sagori; Pfeifer, Madeline R.; Woodford, Emily C.; Gerber, Jeffrey S.; Arevalo, Claudia P.; Bolton, Marcus J.; Weirick, Madison E.; Goodwin, Eileen C.; Anderson, Elizabeth M.; Greenplate, Allison R.; Kim, Justin; Han, Nicholas; Pattekar, Ajinkya; Dougherty, Jeanette; Kuthuru, Oliva; Mathew, Divij; Baxter, Amy E.; Vella, Laura A.; Weaver, JoEllen; Verma, Anurag; Leite, Rita; Morris, Jeffrey S.; Rader, Daniel J.; Elovitz, Michal A.; Wherry, E. John; Puopolo, Karen M.; Hensley, Scott E.

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.