SynthesisInternational journal of infectious diseases : IJID : official publication of the International Society for Infectious Diseases2023
Prepandemic cross-reactive humoral immunity to SARS-CoV-2 in Africa: Systematic review and meta-analysis.
Synthesis in International journal of infectious diseases : IJID : official publication of the International Society for Infectious Diseases, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 9 citations in OpenAlex.
- Reduced COVID-19 severity in Africa: a systematic review of host genetic and immunological responses to SARS-CoV-2 infection.Frontiers in immunology · 2026Pooled it
- Reassessing Early COVID-19 Strategies in East Asia: Insights From Japan and Korea.Journal of preventive medicine and public health = Yebang Uihakhoe chi · 2026Review
- Widespread SARS-CoV-2 Transmission Despite Limited Reported Cases and Clinical Disease: Exploring the Role of Pre-Existing Humoral Immunity to SARS-CoV-2 in Eastern Sierra Leone.Immunity, inflammation and disease · 2026Article
- Article
- Clinical performance of a dual-target SARS CoV-2 antibody assay using sera from Ghana.BMC infectious diseases · 2025Article
- Compartmentalised mucosal and blood immunity to SARS-CoV-2 is associated with high seroprevalence before the Delta wave in Africa.Communications medicine · 2025Article
- High SARS-CoV-2 incidence and asymptomatic fraction during Delta and Omicron BA.1 waves in The Gambia.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Article
- Dengue and SARS-CoV-2 co-circulation and overlapping infections in hospitalized patients.Frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2024Article
- Ethno-demographic disparities in humoral responses to the COVID-19 vaccine among healthcare workers.Journal of medical virology · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesTo assess the evidence on the presence of antibodies cross-reactive with SARS-CoV-2 antigens in prepandemic samples from African populations.
methodsWe performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of studies evaluating prepandemic African samples using pre-set assay-specific thresholds for SARS-CoV-2 seropositivity.
resultsIn total, 26 articles with 156 datasets were eligible, including 3437 positives among 29,923 measurements (11.5%) with large between-dataset heterogeneity. Positivity was similar for anti-nucleocapsid (14%) and anti-spike antibodies (11%), higher for anti-spike1 (23%), and lower for anti-receptor-binding domain antibodies (7%). Positivity was similar, on average, for immunoglobulin M and immunoglobulin G. Positivity was seen prominently in countries where malaria transmission occurs throughout and in datasets enriched in malaria cases (14%, 95% confidence interval, 12-15% vs 2%, 95% confidence interval 1-2% in other datasets). Substantial SARS-CoV-2 reactivity was seen in high malaria burden with or without high dengue burden (14% and 12%, respectively), and not without high malaria burden (2% and 0%, respectively). Lower SARS-CoV-2 cross-reactivity was seen in settings of high HIV seroprevalence. More sparse individual-level data showed associations of higher SARS-CoV-2 cross-reactivity with Plasmodium parasitemia and lower SARS-CoV-2 cross-reactivity with HIV seropositivity.
conclusionPrepandemic samples from Africa show high levels of anti-SARS-CoV-2 seropositivity. At the country level, cross-reactivity tracks especially with malaria prevalence.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.