High Asymptomatic Carriage With the Omicron Variant in South Africa.
Nigel GarrettAsa TapleyJessica AndriesenIshen SeocharanLeigh H FisherLisa BuntsNicole EspyCarole L WallisApril Kaur RandhawaMaurine D MinerNzeera KetterMargaret YacovoneAmeena GogaYunda HuangJohn HuralPhilip KotzeLinda Gail BekkerGlenda E GrayLawrence Coreynull nullPublished in: Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (2022)
We report a 23% asymptomatic severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS CoV-2) Omicron carriage rate in participants being enrolled into a clinical trial in South Africa, 15-fold higher than in trials before Omicron. We also found lower CD4 + T-cell counts in persons with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) strongly correlated with increased odds of being SARS-CoV-2 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) positive.