People with IBD do not seem to be at increased risk of infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, results from California suggest.

Researchers report the results from more than 14,000 tests for the virus conducted on consecutive patients at Stanford University between 4 March and 14 April.

The proportion of people presenting for testing who had IBD was 1.2%, which was comparable to the 1.3% known prevalence of IBD in the US adult population, the researchers reported in Gastroenterology.

Some 3% of the 168 people with IBD who underwent testing were positive for COVID-19, a finding in line with antibody testing carried out in a separate Stanford University study of a representative population sample of one Californian county, which found a prevalence of 2.8%.