Rutgers Pilot for Dental Health Care Worker SARS-CoV-2 Testing (PREDICT-DHCW)

Rutgers Pilot for Pragmatic Return to Effective Dental Infection Control Through Triage and Testing (PREDICT)- Dental Health Care Workers

10 asymptomatic DHCWs in the Oral Medicine clinic, Rutgers School of Dental Medicine, with no history of documented COVID-19 infection or viral exposure, were enrolled in a study that interrogated DHCWs' perceptions of safety and adoption of risk mitigation behavior. Following a baseline survey, finger-prick blood samples were collected twice two weeks apart using an innovative microsampling technique that replaces the need for venipuncture. Samples were processed using an in-house ELISA assay to detect IgM and IgG directed against the Receptor Binding Domain (RBD) of the Spike protein. Weekly Rapid Antigen testing of nasal swab specimens was used to document Antigen negativity during the study.

10 asymptomatic DHCWs in the Oral Medicine clinic, Rutgers School of Dental Medicine, with no history of documented COVID-19 infection or viral exposure, were enrolled in the DHCW arm of the study. The DCHWs underwent triage that included self-reported symptoms, temperature check and obtaining a pulse oximeter reading at every study time-point (See DHCW Arm in Results Section). Weekly Rapid Antigen testing of nasal swab specimens was used to document Antigen negativity during the study (BD Veritor Plus Analyzer, BD Sciences). The DHCWs' perceptions of safety and adoption of risk mitigation behavior were interrogated. Following a baseline survey, finger-prick blood samples were collected twice two weeks apart using avolumentric absorptive microsampling with a Neoteryx Mitra cartridge device (https://www.neoteryx.com) device that allows for self-sampling by non-specialized personnel (https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.07.09.21260266). Briefly, this microsampler allows for volumentric absorption of 10-30 μl of blood depending on selected size. Following the collection, microsamplers were dried and kept within the protective cassettes at room temperature for maximum period of 2 weeks from the collection date. Each microsampler tip (20µl in the present study) was added to 200 μl VAMS extraction buffer (1x PBS (Corning) supplemented with 1% bovine serum albumin (Roche Diagnostics, Mannheim, Germany) and 0.5% Tween20 (Sigma, MO, USA) in a 1 ml deep-well 96 well plate (Greiner bio-one-780261). The plate was then covered with an adhesive seal and incubated 16 hours at 40C on a shaker at 250 rpm. The resulting eluates were heat inactivated at 560C for 60 minutes and centrifugation to collect the supernatant (eluate). Eluates were further processed for an in-house ELISA assay to detect IgM and IgG directed against the Receptor Binding Domain (RBD) of the SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein as described (https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.07.09.21260266)..

Dental Healthcare Worker, Testing, Seroprevalence, Perception of Safety, Adoption of risk mitigation practice

Pilot study to assess feasibility of testing dental healthcare workers for seropositivity and antigen positivity for SARS-CoV-2 (Rapid Antigen point-of-care testing).

There is only one arm in this study- the study is a non-randomized pilot. All the subjects will be tested for SARS CoV 2 viral Antigen and antibody to the virus as described.

Antigen testing: Rapid Antigen testing (Point-of-care) Antibody testing: ELISA testing of microsampling 'finger-prick' specimen DHCW Survey for adoption of risk mitigation practices and for perceptions of safety

Number of Dental Health Care Workers (DHCWs) approached to enroll 10 consenting subjects to participate in the study

Percentage of Dental Healthcare workers (DHCW)s who complete the study steps of surveys, triage and testing

Number of DHCWs who reported ease of complying with protocol as their choices on questions on the survey enquiring ease at start-of-study, end-of-study

Percentage of dental healthcare workers who responded feeling safe and comfortable reporting to work in the survey presented in the pilot study

Inclusion Criteria: Dental healthcare workers (DHCW)s employed at Rutgers School of Dental Medicine Exclusion Criteria: Previous participation

If the COVID test results show that a participant is positive for COVID-19, the study staff will tell the participant the results. The study staff will be required to give the participant's name to the state's Department of Public Health if the participant tests positive because this is the law. At the end of the study, de-identified data will be provided to the National Coordinating Center.

1. American Dental Association COVID-19 Toolkit - Update to Office Procedures During COVID-19. https://www.ada.org/-/media/project/ada-organization/ada/ada-org/files/resources/coronavirus/update_to_office_procedures_during_covid19.pdf accessed on November 11, 2021.

Estrich CG, Mikkelsen M, Morrissey R, Geisinger ML, Ioannidou E, Vujicic M, Araujo MWB. Estimating COVID-19 prevalence and infection control practices among US dentists. J Am Dent Assoc. 2020 Nov;151(11):815-824. doi: 10.1016/j.adaj.2020.09.005.

Shirazi S, Stanford CM, Cooper LF. Testing for COVID-19 in dental offices: Mechanism of action, application, and interpretation of laboratory and point-of-care screening tests. J Am Dent Assoc. 2021 Jul;152(7):514-525.e8. doi: 10.1016/j.adaj.2021.04.019. Epub 2021 May 4. Erratum In: J Am Dent Assoc. 2021 Sep;152(9):719.