Aug 3rd, 2020 - At the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, hand hygiene audits indicated decreased compliance in a 12-bed Critical Care (CC) area with ventilated COVID-19 patients, where staff used PPE including sessional use of full sleeved gowns as per Public Health England (PHE) recommendations. There was also a cluster of 3 central venous catheter (CVC) infections along with increases in the number of patients ...

Aug 2nd, 2020 - Healthcare employees were tested for antibodies against SARS-CoV-2. Among 734 employees, the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies was 1.6%. Employees with heavy COVID-19 exposure had similar antibody prevalence as those with limited or no exposure. Guidelines for PPE use seem effective for preventing COVID-19 infection in healthcare workers.

Aug 2nd, 2020 - Health care workers (HCWs) are at risk of getting infected while at work, for example, operating room (OR), hence it is pertinent that they don all the appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) to minimize the chance of getting infected. A COVID-19 specific briefing and debriefing form was created and used in the OR along with the World Health Organization surgical safety checklist to rei...

Aug 2nd, 2020 - The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization have developed preparedness and prevention checklists for healthcare professionals regarding the containment of COVID-19. The aim of the present protocol is to evaluate the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak among dentists in different countries where various prevalence of the epidemic has been reported. Several resea...

Jul 31st, 2020 - The pandemic coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has taken a heavy toll on human life and has upended the medical system in many countries. The disease has created a system wide worsening shortage of N95, medical masks, and other personal protective equipment (PPE) that is regularly used by healthcare personnel and emergency service providers for their protection. Considering the number of infe...

Jul 31st, 2020 - To describe the use of a new protective device to reduce aerosol dispersion in dental clinics during the COVID-19 pandemic. The device consists of a rigid translucent acrylic structure (methyl polymethacrylate), adjusted to the dental chair, involving the patient's head, neck and chest regions. There is also a piping system to generate negative pressure, for aspiration and filtering of the air ...

Jul 30th, 2020 - The worldwide outbreak of coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) has already put healthcare workers (HCWs) at a high risk of infection. The question of how to give HCWs the best protection against infection is a priority. Our literature review has indicated that the degree of protection required in looking after people with COVID-19 infection, is dependent on the particular environment to which the ...

Jul 30th, 2020 - Healthcare worker (HCW) associated COVID-19 is of global concern due to the potential for nosocomial spread and depletion of staff numbers. However, the literature on transmission routes and risk factors for COVID-19 in HCWs is limited. To examine the characteristics and transmission dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 in HCWs in a university teaching hospital in London, UK. Staff records and virology testi...

Jul 30th, 2020 - The SARS-CoV-2 virus (COVID19) pandemic has placed extreme pressures on the Canadian Healthcare system. Many health care regions in Canada have cancelled or limited surgical and non-surgical interventions on patients to preserve healthcare resources for a predicted increase in COVID19 related hospital admissions. Also reduced health interventions may limit the risk of possible transmission of C...

Jul 29th, 2020 - Staff and employees "Zero infection" has been achieved during the whole medical activities in the COVID-19 Fangcang Shelter Hospital in Wuhan, China. This study analyzes the personnel and environmental protection status of the East-West Lake Fangcang Shelter Hospital. The HCWs were mostly composed of national medical rescue teams, from different provinces in China. Among them, 64.8% were from t...

Jul 29th, 2020 - We experienced an emergency room (ER) shutdown related to an accidental exposure to a patient with COVID-19 who had not been isolated. To prevent in-hospital transmission of the disease, we subsequently isolated patients with suspected symptoms, relevant radiographic findings, or epidemiology. The SARS-CoV-2 reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction was performed in most patients requirin...

Jul 29th, 2020 - The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is a public health crisis that has quickly overwhelmed our healthcare system. It has led to significant shortages in personal protective equipment (PPE), ventilators, and intensive care unit beds across the nation. As the initial entry point for patients with suspected COVID illness, emergency departments (ED) have had to adapt quickly to priorit...

Jul 28th, 2020 - Under times of supply chain stress, the availability of some medical equipment and supplies may become limited. The current pandemic involving severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 has highlighted limitations to the ordinary provision of personal protective equipment (PPE). For perioperative healthcare workers, N95 masks provide a stark example of PPE in short supply necessitating the...

Jul 27th, 2020 - The aim of this study was to explore knowledge, practice of risk and guidelines of the novel corona virus disease (COVID-19) infection among the eye care practitioners and the potential associated factors. A cross-sectional self-administered online survey was distributed via emails and social media networks between 2nd and 18th May 2020 corresponding to the week of the lockdown in Nigeria to ey...

Jul 27th, 2020 - The COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic is an ongoing public health challenge, also for the dentistry community. The main objective of this paper was to determine the economic and health-care impact of COVID-19 on dentists in the Autonomous Region of Galicia (Spain). This was a descriptive observational study in which the data was collected by means of a self-administered survey (from 1 April 2020 t...

Jul 27th, 2020 - Background: In the ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, resuming provision of surgical services poses a challenge given that patients may have acute surgical pathologies with concurrent COVID-19 infection. We utilized a risk-stratified approach to allow for early recognition and isolation of potential COVID-19 infection in surgical patients, ensuring continuity of surgical serv...

Jul 26th, 2020 - SARS-CoV-2 is a highly transmissible virus that can infect health care personnel and patients in health care settings. Specific care activities, in particular aerosol-generating procedures, may have a higher risk of transmission. The rapid emergence and global spread of SARS-CoV-2 has created significant challenges in health care facilities, particularly with severe shortages of personal protec...

Jul 26th, 2020 - We describe the details of a COVID-19 outbreak in a 25-bedded Birmingham neurology/stroke ward in the early phase of the pandemic (March to May 2020). Twenty-one of 133 admissions (16%) tested positive for COVID-19 and of those, 8 (6% of all admissions to the ward) were determined to be nosocomial. Thus 38% (8/21) of COVID-19 infections were hospital-acquired. Ten of the patients that contracte...

Jul 26th, 2020 - The overall aim of this study was to evaluate personal protective equipment (PPE) that may facilitate the safe recommencement of cochlear implantation in the COVID-19 era with the broader goal of minimising the period of auditory deprivation in prelingually deaf children and reducing the risk of cochlear ossification in individuals following meningitis. Using a preclinical model, an objective a...

Jul 24th, 2020 - Workers whose occupations put them in contact with infected persons and the public are at increased risk of COVID-19 infection. The Collegium Ramazzini calls on governments at all levels to protect worker health by strengthening public health systems; maintaining comprehensive social insurance systems; establishing policies that presume all COVID-19 infections in high-risk workers are work-rela...