Research Information System
TURKISH JOURNAL OF MEDICAL SCIENCES, no.54, pp.761-765, 2024 (SCI-Expanded)
Background/aim: Although seasonal human coronaviruses (HCoVs) have long been recognized as respiratory tract viruses, the newly
identified SARS-CoV-2 caused a pandemic associated with severe respiratory failure. We aimed to evaluate the incidence of COVID-19
infection in patients diagnosed in three tertiary teaching hospitals, both with and without prior confirmed HCoV infection, and to
compare these cohorts in terms of COVID-19 contraction.
Materials and methods: In our study, we examined HCoV PCR-positive cases obtained retrospectively between January 2014 and
March 2020 from three University Hospital Microbiology Laboratories (Cohort 1), as well as PCR-negative patients detected in the same
PCR cycle as the positive cases (Cohort 2). We also evaluated subgroups of HCoV-positive cases.
Results: There was no difference in COVID-19 contraction rates between Cohort 1 and Cohort 2 (p = 0.724). When previous HCoV
subgroups of COVID-19-positive patients were examined, no significant difference was found between the betacoronavirus and
alphacoronavirus subgroups (p = 0.822), among the four groups (NL63, 229E, OC43, HKU-1) (p = 0.207), or between the OC43
subgroup and the other groups (p = 0.295).
Conclusion: Being previously infected with HCoV did not provide protection against COVID-19 in our study group. We suggest
evaluating the possible effect of previous OC43 infection on COVID-19 contraction in larger cohorts.