Risk Factors Associated with COVID-19 Infections among Healthcare Workers in Eswatini: A Cross-Sectional Study

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has spread with alarming speed, infecting millions globally, including Eswatini. Despite the institutionalization of measures by the Ministry of Health (MoH) to fight the pandemic, the cumulative number of people infected with COVID-19 has kept increasing daily. We sought to assess risk factors for COVID-19 infections among Health care workers (HCWs) in selected health facilities of the Lubombo region of Eswatini.

A cross-sectional design and systematic stratified sampling were used to select the participants.

The study enrolled 333 HCWs, with the majority (201, 60.4%) being females, and the participants’ mean age was 33 years. The study showed that not having an isolation arrangement in a health facility for people suspected to have COVID-19 presents risk to HCWs for COVID-19 (Crude Odds Ratio (COR) = 2.5, 95%CI: 1.0–6.2), p = 0.50; Adjusted Odds Ratio (AOR) = 3.0, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.0–8.7, p = 0.038). Likewise, HCWs who rarely followed infection prevention and control (IPC) measures were at higher risk of COVID-19 infection than those who followed such measures (COR = 4.2, 95%CI: 1.1–17.2, p = 0.041; AOR = 6.5, 95%CI: 1.4–30.0, p = 0.016), and HCWs exposed to a colleague diagnosed with COVID-19 were at higher risk of being infected themselves (AOR = 11.4; 95%CI: 0.9–135.7; p = 0.054).

An active COVID-19 symptoms screening, triage and isolation arrangement for suspected COVID-19 clients for all clients entering the facility increases protection of HCWs from COVID-19. Reinforcement of all infection prevention and control measures to prevent exposures from infected patients and colleagues is essential.