Cookies on this website

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you click 'Accept all cookies' we'll assume that you are happy to receive all cookies and you won't see this message again. If you click 'Reject all non-essential cookies' only necessary cookies providing core functionality such as security, network management, and accessibility will be enabled. Click 'Find out more' for information on how to change your cookie settings.

As countries decide on vaccination strategies and how to ease movement restrictions, estimating the proportion of the population previously infected with SARS-CoV-2 is important for predicting the future burden of COVID-19. This proportion is usually estimated from serosurvey data in two steps: first the proportion above a threshold antibody level is calculated, then the crude estimate is adjusted using external estimates of sensitivity and specificity. A drawback of this approach is that the PCR-confirmed cases used to estimate the sensitivity of the threshold may not be representative of cases in the wider population-e.g., they may be more recently infected and more severely symptomatic. Mixture modelling offers an alternative approach that does not require external data from PCR-confirmed cases. Here we illustrate the bias in the standard threshold-based approach by comparing both approaches using data from several Kenyan serosurveys. We show that the mixture model analysis produces estimates of previous infection that are often substantially higher than the standard threshold analysis.

Original publication

DOI

10.1038/s41467-021-26452-z

Type

Journal article

Journal

Nature communications

Publication Date

10/2021

Volume

12

Addresses

International Statistics and Epidemiology Group, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, UK. christian.bottomley@lshtm.ac.uk.

Keywords

Humans, Antibodies, Viral, Models, Statistical, Sensitivity and Specificity, Seroepidemiologic Studies, Kenya, Bias, COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 Serological Testing