• Gamze Şanlidağ Işbilen, Ayça Aydın Uysal, Selin Yiğit, Özgür Appak, Hilal Sipahi, Gülendam Bozdayi, Arzu Sayiner, Candan Çiçek, Özlem Güzel Tunçcan, and Oğuz Reşat Sipahi.
• Department of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine, Ege University, İzmir, Turkiye.
• Turk J Med Sci. 2024 Jan 1; 54 (4): 761765761-765.

Background/AimAlthough 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 MethodsIn 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.ResultsThere 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).ConclusionBeing 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.© TÜBİTAK.

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