Hohmuth N, Khanyaree I, Lang AL, Duering O, Konigorski S, Višković V, Heising T, Egender F, Remschmidt C, Leistner R. Participatory disease surveillance for a mass gathering — a prospective cohort study on COVID-19, Germany 2021.
BMC Public Health 2022;
22:2074. [PMID:
36376856 PMCID:
PMC9660174 DOI:
10.1186/s12889-022-14505-x]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/29/2022] [Accepted: 10/31/2022] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
Background
Mass gatherings (MGs) such as music festivals and sports events have been associated with a high risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission. On-site research can foster knowledge of risk factors for infections and improve risk assessments and precautionary measures at future MGs. We tested a web-based participatory disease surveillance tool to detect COVID-19 infections at and after an outdoor MG by collecting self-reported COVID-19 symptoms and tests.
Methods
We conducted a digital prospective observational cohort study among fully immunized attendees of a sports festival that took place from September 2 to 5, 2021 in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Participants used our study app to report demographic data, COVID-19 tests, symptoms, and their contact behavior. This self-reported data was used to define probable and confirmed COVID-19 cases for the full “study period” (08/12/2021 – 10/31/2021) and within the 14-day “surveillance period” during and after the MG, with the highest likelihood of an MG-related COVID-19 outbreak (09/04/2021 – 09/17/2021).
Results
A total of 2,808 of 9,242 (30.4%) event attendees participated in the study. Within the study period, 776 individual symptoms and 5,255 COVID-19 tests were reported. During the 14-day surveillance period around and after the MG, seven probable and seven PCR-confirmed COVID-19 cases were detected. The confirmed cases translated to an estimated seven-day incidence of 125 per 100,000 participants (95% CI [67.7/100,000, 223/100,000]), which was comparable to the average age-matched incidence in Germany during this time. Overall, weekly numbers of COVID-19 cases were fluctuating over the study period, with another increase at the end of the study period.
Conclusion
COVID-19 cases attributable to the mass gathering were comparable to the Germany-wide age-matched incidence, implicating that our active participatory disease surveillance tool was able to detect MG-related infections. Further studies are needed to evaluate and apply our participatory disease surveillance tool in other mass gathering settings.
Supplementary Information
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-022-14505-x.
Collapse