Data from: A systematic review and meta-analysis of seroprevalence surveys of ebolavirus infection

Asymptomatic ebolavirus infection could greatly influence transmission dynamics, but there is little consensus on how frequently it occurs or even if it exists. This paper summarises the available evidence on seroprevalence of Ebola, Sudan and Bundibugyo virus IgG in people without known ebolavirus disease. Through systematic review, we identified 51 studies with seroprevalence results in sera collected from 1961 to 2016. We tabulated findings by study population, contact, assay, antigen and positivity threshold used, and present seroprevalence point estimates and 95% confidence intervals. We classified sampled populations in three groups: those with household or known case-contact; those living in outbreak or epidemic areas but without reported case-contact; and those living in areas with no recorded cases of ebolavirus disease. We performed meta-analysis only in the known case-contact group since this is the only group with comparable exposures between studies. Eight contact studies fitted our inclusion criteria, giving an overall estimate of seroprevalence in contacts with no reported symptoms of 3.3% (95% CI 2.4-4.4, p<0.001), but with substantial heterogeneity.

无症状埃博拉病毒（ebolavirus）感染可显著影响病毒传播动力学，但目前学界对其发生频率，乃至其是否真实存在尚未达成共识。本研究综述了无已知埃博拉病毒病（ebolavirus disease）感染者中，埃博拉病毒、苏丹型埃博拉病毒及邦迪布约病毒IgG的血清阳性率相关现有研究证据。通过系统综述方法，我们共检索到1961年至2016年间采集血清样本后获得血清阳性率结果的51项研究。我们按照研究人群、接触史、检测方法、所用抗原及阳性判定阈值对研究结果进行了制表汇总，并报告了血清阳性率的点估计值与95%置信区间（95% CI）。我们将纳入研究的人群分为三组：有家庭接触史或明确病例接触史的人群；居住在暴发或流行区域但无明确病例接触史的人群；以及居住在无埃博拉病毒病记录病例区域的人群。鉴于仅明确病例接触史组的不同研究间暴露水平具备可比性，因此我们仅针对该组人群开展了荟萃分析（meta-analysis）。共有8项接触史相关研究符合本研究的纳入标准，其结果显示无报告症状的接触者血清阳性率总体估计值为3.3%（95% CI 2.4~4.4，p<0.001），但研究间存在显著异质性。