Results
A total of 593 women were screened for SARS-CoV2 in this period. This
included 69 women during targeted screening, and 524 through enhanced
screening. Through this a total of 18/593 women (3%) were found to have
SARS-CoV2, with 13/69 (19%) in the earlier targeted screening period
and 5/524 (1%) in the later enhanced screening section. The peak in
cases (5 positive of 8 screened) occurred in the week starting
15th March 2020 (Figure 1 ).
On reviewing all the positive cases, 15/18 women (83%) had symptoms of
coronavirus (cough, shortness of breath, fever or anosmia). Two women
(2/18, 11%) initially denied any symptoms but when they developed a
fever in labour, admitted to having symptoms of COVID-19 for a few days
prior to admission. Three women (3/18, 17%) were positive for SARS-CoV2
who did not have current coronavirus symptoms. However, 2/3 of these
women had symptoms in the 2 weeks preceding screening; the
3rd woman was screened as her baby tested positive for
coronavirus 5 weeks’ post-partum. No positive cases were detected
through routine surveillance in women with no symptoms or close recent
contacts.