German scientists have named the real incidence of SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus among children in Bavaria (Germany), which turned out to be six times higher than it follows from official statistics. This is reported in an article published in the journal Cell, and the study is summarized in a press release on MedicalXpress.
Experts have developed a new method for measuring antibodies against coronavirus by their response to both the receptor-binding domain and viral envelope proteins. This two-step approach increases the specificity of the test to one hundred percent and the sensitivity to over 95 percent.
The study involved nearly 12 thousand children aged 1 to 18 years old, who took blood samples. They found that the average antibody frequency from April to June reached 0.87 percent, six times higher than the incidence reported by the State Office for Health and Food Safety in Bavaria.
Almost half (47 percent) of the antibody-positive children had no symptoms. Among children with family history of coronavirus infection, a third (35 percent) had antibodies, indicating a higher expected transmission rate in children compared to most previous studies.
