Avoiding health worker infection and containing the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic: Perspectives from the frontline in Wuhan

Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has caused great public concern worldwide due to its high rates of infectivity and pathogenicity. The Chinese government responded in a timely manner, alleviated the dilemma, achieved a huge victory and lockdown has now been lifted in Wuhan. However, the outbreak has occurred in more than 200 other countries. Globally, as of 9:56 am CEST on 19 May 2020, there have been 4,696,849 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 315,131 deaths, reported to Word Health Organization (WHO). The spread of COVID-19 overwhelmed the healthcare systems of many countries and even crashed the fragile healthcare systems of some. Although the situation in each country is different, health workers play a critical role in the fight against COVID-19. In this review, we highlight the status of health worker infections in China and other countries, especially the causes of infection in China and the standardised protocol to protect health workers from the perspective of an anaesthesiologist, in the hope of providing references to reduce medical infections and contain the COVID-19 epidemic.

Keywords: Asymptomatic infection; COVID-19; Health worker infection; Personal protective equipment; SARS-CoV-2.

Fig. 1

Emergency surgery management process in our hospital [note: tests (−) include sputum and nasopharyngeal swabs and other respiratory tract specimens tested negative in two consecutive nucleic acid tests and blood SARS-CoV-2 antibody tested negative in two antibody tests, with the sampling time at least 24 h apart, it means normal chest computed tomography simultaneously; Symptoms include fever (body temperature≥37.3 °C) and other respiratory symptoms; The operating rooms on the second floor are also clean operating rooms. As a contrast, laminar flow was turned off and an independent disinfection system such as ozone disinfection machine and ultraviolet air disinfection machine was used to disinfect the air and object surface during the COVID-19 epidemic].