TITLE:
An Investigation into Infection Prevention and Control Practices among Close Contacts of COVID-19 Positive Cases Identified during Trace Test and Quarantine Activities at District Quetta (Unmatched Case-Control Study)
AUTHORS:
Muhammad Arif, Abid Saeed, Muhammad Abdullah, Ambreen Chaudhary, Zakir Hussain, Mirza Zeeshan Iqbal Baig, Zubair Ahmed Khoso, Mir Abdul Qadir, Sheikh Ahmed, Saher Sultan, Zahra Gauhar, Ayesha Babar Kawish, Ehsan Larik
KEYWORDS:
COVID-19, IPC Measures, Contact, PCR, PDSRU
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Epidemiology,
Vol.11 No.4,
October
13,
2021
ABSTRACT: The second wave of COVID-19 pandemic has started globally, right now 220 countries are infected and a total of 71,351,695 confirmed cases and 1,612,372 deaths due to COVID-19 have been reported. Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) measures for COVID-19 all have proved vital in decreasing the transmission rates among the communities. Methodology: Unmatched Case-Control Study was conducted where cases were defined as “every PCR positive contact (symptomatic or asymptomatic) for any index case” similarly controls were defined as “every PCR negative contact (symptomatic or asymptomatic) for any index case who was home quarantined for 14 days based on suspicion by PDSRU team”. A simple random technique was used and 300 individuals were made part of this study. Results: The major findings of this study shows that PCR positive contacts poorly adopted certain COVID-19 IPC measures of interest in their daily life hence got infected. The odds for all the variables of interest were found to be statistically significant among cases as compared to controls like the odds for knowingly and intentionally contacted with a COVID-19 positive case was 13.7 times more among the PCR positive contacts as compare to PCR negative contacts (p = 0.00, C.I = 7.62 - 24.90), similarly, the odds of being a family member of the index COVID-19 case was 7.07 times more among the PCR positive contacts as compared to the PCR negative contacts (p = 0.00, C.I = 3.25 - 15.86). Conclusion: Before the development and availability of a vaccine, the only tools that can help prevent the spread of COVID-19 are IPC measures.