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Risk factors for person-to-person transmission of severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 November 2020
Abstract
To determine the risk factors for person-to-person transmission of severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS).
Studies reporting the person-to-person transmission or cluster infection of SFTS were identified and included for risk-factor analyses.
Risk factors were investigated by analyzing characteristics of index patients who caused cluster infection and correlation between exposure history and secondary infection.
Analyses of 23 clusters of SFTS infections indicated that all index patients died and that they all had a symptom of bleeding 24 hours before death. Of 89 secondary cases, 82% had been exposed to the index patients’ blood. The blood-contact–specific secondary attack rate was 62.4% (73 of 117). The risk relative value was 25 (95% CI, 15–42); thus, the probability of a person getting infected was 25 times more likely when they had contacted blood than when they had not.
Exposure to blood of SFTS patients is the highest risk factor for person-to-person infection with SFTSV. SFTS patients’ families and healthcare workers should be educated to handle SFTS patients properly and safely to prevent the spread of SFTSV.
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- © 2020 by The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America. All rights reserved.
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