October 13, 2020

The Household Secondary Attack Rate of SARS-CoV-2: A Rapid Review

Category: Article Summary

Topic: Transmission

Keywords (Tags): transmission

• A literature review of 22 household transmission studies comprising 20,291 SARS-CoV-2 household contacts from 10 countries found an overall pooled estimate of household secondary attack proportion of 17% (95%CI: 14-21%). Stratifying the studies by testing frequency showed the pooled secondary attack proportion estimates to be 9% with one test, 18% with two tests, and 21% with >2 tests, suggesting that household secondary attack proportion derived from single follow-up tests may be an underestimation. Household secondary attack proportion also tended to be higher among older adult contacts and among contacts of symptomatic cases.

Fung et al. (Oct 12, 2020). The Household Secondary Attack Rate of SARS-CoV-2: A Rapid Review. Clinical Infectious Diseases. https://doi.org/10.1093/cid/ciaa1558