Seroprevalence of tetanus and pertussis antibodies among health care workers in Wuhu, China

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to elucidate the seroprevalence of antibodies to tetanus and pertussis among Chinese health care workers. Blood specimens from health care workers were collected during the 2021 annual medical examination at the First People’s Hospital of Wuhu. Commercial ELISA kits were employed to quantify serum IgG antibodies against tetanus toxin (anti-TT IgG) and both IgG and IgA antibodies against pertussis toxin (anti-PT IgG, anti-PT IgA). A concentration of anti-TT IgG exceeding 0.1 IU/ml was deemed seroprotective against tetanus, while concentrations of anti-PT IgG ≥ 50 IU/ml or anti-PT IgA ≥ 15 IU/ml were indicative of a prior pertussis infection. The overall seroprotective rate for anti-TT IgG stood at 10.43% (92/882), with the highest seroprotective rate (13.91%) in the 20–29 age group, followed by the 30–39 age group (10.57%), 40–49 age group (5.80%), and 50–59 age group (5.63%). Eighteen (2.04%) of the studied subjects were positive to anti-PT IgG, and the positive rate in 20–39 age group and 40–59 age group was 1.19% (8/673) and 4.78% (10/209), respectively. Thirty (3.40%) subjects displayed anti-PT IgG levels ≥100 IU/ml and/or anti-PT IgA ≥ 15 IU/ml, suggesting a recent pertussis infection within the preceding year. Over half (503/882, 57.03%) had undetectable anti-PT IgG antibodies. The majority of health care workers in China appear susceptible to tetanus and pertussis, and a significant subset has experienced pertussis infection. The implementation of booster vaccinations against these diseases for Chinese health care workers is recommended.

KEYWORDS:

• Seroprevalence
• pertussis
• tetanus
• health care workers
• vaccination

Acknowledgments

The authors sincerely thank the Euroimmun company for providing ELISA kits, and thank the staff of the First People’s Hospital of Wuhu for providing their leftover serum samples.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Authors’ contributions

Wei Shi，Bingsong Wang, and Kaihu Yao designed the study and handled the manuscript; Wei Shi, Qinghong Meng, Xianlai Zhang, Zhen Li, Fei Ying, and Linyan Cong collected the sera and performed the ELISA experiments; Wei Shi, Bingsong Wang, and Fang He worked with the statistical analysis.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Scientific Research Project of Wuhu Health Commission [WHWJ2022z003].