Lower prevalence of antibodies neutralizing SARS-CoV-2 in group O French blood donors

• Published in: Antiviral research 2020-09, Vol.181, p.104880-104880, Article 104880
• Main Authors: Gallian, Pierre, Pastorino, Boris, Morel, Pascal, Chiaroni, Jacques, Ninove, Laetitia, de Lamballerie, Xavier
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adult; Antibodies, Neutralizing; Antibodies, Neutralizing - blood; Antibodies, Viral; Antibodies, Viral - blood; Betacoronavirus; Betacoronavirus - immunology; Blood Donors; Blood Group Antigens; Blood groups; Coronavirus Infections; Coronavirus Infections - epidemiology; Coronavirus Infections - virology; COVID-19; Female; France; France - epidemiology; Hospitalization; Humans; Incidence; Intensive Care Units; Life Sciences; Male; Middle Aged; Pandemics; Pneumonia, Viral; Pneumonia, Viral - epidemiology; Pneumonia, Viral - virology; Risk; SARS-CoV-2; Sensitivity and Specificity; Seroepidemiologic Studies; Seroneutralisation; Short Communication; Young Adult
• ISSN: 0166-3542; 1872-9096; 1872-9096
• DOI: 10.1016/j.antiviral.2020.104880

We investigated the distribution of antibodies neutralizing SARS-CoV-2 according to age, sex or blood group in French blood donors. In 464 samples collected before the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 (2017 and 2018), our virus neutralization assay had a 100% specificity. It was used to test 998 samples collected from blood donors during the last week of March or the first week of April 2020. As expected at this stage of the outbreak, the prevalence was low (2.7%) and, importantly, criteria for blood donation imply that the vast majority of seropositives had asymptomatic or pauci-symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infections. Seroprevalence values did not differ significantly among age groups (but were slightly higher in donors