Please wait a minute...
Frontiers of Medicine

ISSN 2095-0217

ISSN 2095-0225(Online)

CN 11-5983/R

Postal Subscription Code 80-967

2018 Impact Factor: 1.847

Front. Med.    2020, Vol. 14 Issue (2) : 229-231    https://doi.org/10.1007/s11684-020-0765-x
COMMENTARY
Protecting healthcare personnel from 2019-nCoV infection risks: lessons and suggestions
Zhiruo Zhang1, Shelan Liu2, Mi Xiang1, Shijian Li3, Dahai Zhao4, Chaolin Huang5, Saijuan Chen6()
1. School of Public Health, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200025, China
2. Department of Infectious Diseases, Zhejiang Provincial Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, Hangzhou 310000, China
3. Department of Public Health, SUNY College at Old Westbury, Old Westbury, NY 11568, USA
4. School of International and Public Affairs, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200025, China
5. Department of Infectious Diseases, Jinyintan Hospital, Wuhan 430030, China
6. Key Laboratory of Medical Genomics, Shanghai Institute of Hematology, National Research Center for Translational Medicine, Ruijin Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200025, China
 Download: PDF(219 KB)   HTML
 Export: BibTeX | EndNote | Reference Manager | ProCite | RefWorks
Abstract

The outbreak of a novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19, caused by the 2019-nCoV infection) in December 2019 is one of the most severe public health emergencies since the founding of People’s Republic of China in 1949. Healthcare personnel (HCP) nationwide are facing heavy workloads and high risk of infection, especially those who care for patients in Hubei Province. Sadly, as of February 20, 2020, over two thousand COVID-19 cases are confirmed among HCP from 476 hospitals nationwide, with nearly 90% of them from Hubei Province. Based on literature search and interviews with some HCP working at Wuhan, capital city of Hubei, we have summarized some of the effective measures taken to reduce infection among HCP, and also made suggestions for improving occupational safety during an infectious disease outbreak. The experience and lessons learned should be a valuable asset for international health community to contain the ongoing COVID-19 epidemic around the world.

Keywords healthcare personnel      COVID-19      infectious diseases     
Corresponding Author(s): Saijuan Chen   
Just Accepted Date: 05 March 2020   Online First Date: 20 March 2020    Issue Date: 09 May 2020
 Cite this article:   
Zhiruo Zhang,Shelan Liu,Mi Xiang, et al. Protecting healthcare personnel from 2019-nCoV infection risks: lessons and suggestions[J]. Front. Med., 2020, 14(2): 229-231.
 URL:  
https://academic.hep.com.cn/fmd/EN/10.1007/s11684-020-0765-x
https://academic.hep.com.cn/fmd/EN/Y2020/V14/I2/229
Date Confirmed cases from Hubei, n (%) Confirmed cases nationwide
December 18–31, 2019 0 (0%) 0
January 1–10, 2020 19 (95%) 20
January 11–20, 2020 281 (91%) 310
January 21–31, 2020 906 (87%) 1036
February 1–11, 2020 268 (83%) 322
February 12–20, 2020 335 (91%) 367
Total 1809 (88%) 2055
Tab.1  The number of health care workers who have been infected with 2019-nCoV from December 18, 2019 to February 20, 2020
Fig.1  Chaolin Huang, Department of Infectious Diseases, Jinyintan Hospital, Wuhan. Overworked, Dr. Huang was hospitalized for 2019-nCoV infection on January 23, and was discharged on February 17, 2020 after intensive treatment.
1 National Health Commission of the People’s Republic of China. The latest situation of novel coronavirus pneumonia. March 1, 2020. (in Chinese)
2 WHO. Report of the WHO-China Joint Mission on Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). 2020.
3 National Health Commission of the People’s Republic of China. Notification for further strengthening the protection of health personnel during 2019-nCoV outbreak. February 19, 2020.(in Chinese)
4 The State Council. Press Conference of the Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism of the State Council. February 20, 2020.(in Chinese)
5 Information Office of Hubei Provincial People’s Government. Press Conference on Prevention and Control of New Coronavirus Infected Pneumonia. February 22, 2020. (in Chinese)
6 D Chang, H Xu, A Rebaza, L Sharma, CS Dela Cruz. Protecting health-care workers from subclinical coronavirus infection. Lancet Respir Med 2020; 8(3): e13
https://doi.org/10.1016/S2213-2600(20)30066-7 pmid: 32061333
7 XH Wang, ZY Pan, ZS Cheng. Association between 2019-nCoV transmission and N95 respirator use. medRxiv 2020; doi: 10.1101/2020.02.18.20021881
8 Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia Emergency Response Epidemiology Team. The epidemiological characteristics of an outbreak of 2019 novel coronavirus diseases (COVID-19) in China. Chin J Epidemiol (Zhonghua Liu Xing Bing Xue Za Zhi) 2020; 41(2): 145–151 (in Chinese)
pmid: 32064853
[1] Miaojin Zhu, Jia Ji, Danrong Shi, Xiangyun Lu, Baohong Wang, Nanping Wu, Jie Wu, Hangping Yao, Lanjuan Li. Unusual global outbreak of monkeypox: what should we do?[J]. Front. Med., 2022, 16(4): 507-517.
[2] Xiaoguang Xu, Wei Zhang, Mingquan Guo, Chenlu Xiao, Ziyu Fu, Shuting Yu, Lu Jiang, Shengyue Wang, Yun Ling, Feng Liu, Yun Tan, Saijuan Chen. Integrated analysis of gut microbiome and host immune responses in COVID-19[J]. Front. Med., 2022, 16(2): 263-275.
[3] Yi Zhang, Haocheng Zhang, Wenhong Zhang. SARS-CoV-2 variants, immune escape, and countermeasures[J]. Front. Med., 2022, 16(2): 196-207.
[4] Yiming Shao, Yingqi Wu, Yi Feng, Wenxin Xu, Feng Xiong, Xinxin Zhang. SARS-CoV-2 vaccine research and immunization strategies for improved control of the COVID-19 pandemic[J]. Front. Med., 2022, 16(2): 185-195.
[5] Wei Zhang, Xiaoguang Xu, Ziyu Fu, Jian Chen, Saijuan Chen, Yun Tan. PathogenTrack and Yeskit: tools for identifying intracellular pathogens from single-cell RNA-sequencing datasets as illustrated by application to COVID-19[J]. Front. Med., 2022, 16(2): 251-262.
[6] Qiaoli Shi, Fei Xia, Qixin Wang, Fulong Liao, Qiuyan Guo, Chengchao Xu, Jigang Wang. Discovery and repurposing of artemisinin[J]. Front. Med., 2022, 16(1): 1-9.
[7] Jing Wang, Zequn Lu, Meng Jin, Ying Wang, Kunming Tian, Jun Xiao, Yimin Cai, Yanan Wang, Xu Zhang, Tao Chen, Zhi Yao, Chunguang Yang, Renli Deng, Qiang Zhong, Xiongbo Deng, Xin Chen, Xiang-ping Yang, Gonghong Wei, Zhihua Wang, Jianbo Tian, Xiao-ping Chen. Clinical characteristics and risk factors of COVID-19 patients with chronic hepatitis B: a multi-center retrospective cohort study[J]. Front. Med., 2022, 16(1): 111-125.
[8] Huai-yu Wang, Suyuan Peng, Zhanghui Ye, Pengfei Li, Qing Li, Xuanyu Shi, Rui Zeng, Ying Yao, Fan He, Junhua Li, Liu Liu, Shuwang Ge, Xianjun Ke, Zhibin Zhou, Gang Xu, Ming-hui Zhao, Haibo Wang, Luxia Zhang, Erdan Dong. Renin--angiotensin system inhibitor is associated with the reduced risk of all-cause mortality in COVID-19 among patients with/without hypertension[J]. Front. Med., 2022, 16(1): 102-110.
[9] Zehong Huang, Yingying Su, Tianying Zhang, Ningshao Xia. A review of the safety and efficacy of current COVID-19 vaccines[J]. Front. Med., 2022, 16(1): 39-55.
[10] Yuntao Zhang, Yunkai Yang, Niu Qiao, Xuewei Wang, Ling Ding, Xiujuan Zhu, Yu Liang, Zibo Han, Feng Liu, Xinxin Zhang, Xiaoming Yang. Early assessment of the safety and immunogenicity of a third dose (booster) of COVID-19 immunization in Chinese adults[J]. Front. Med., 2022, 16(1): 93-101.
[11] Li Ni, Zheng Wen, Xiaowen Hu, Wei Tang, Haisheng Wang, Ling Zhou, Lujin Wu, Hong Wang, Chang Xu, Xizhen Xu, Zhichao Xiao, Zongzhe Li, Chene Li, Yujian Liu, Jialin Duan, Chen Chen, Dan Li, Runhua Zhang, Jinliang Li, Yongxiang Yi, Wei Huang, Yanyan Chen, Jianping Zhao, Jianping Zuo, Jianping Weng, Hualiang Jiang, Dao Wen Wang. Effects of Shuanghuanglian oral liquids on patients with COVID-19: a randomized, open-label, parallel-controlled, multicenter clinical trial[J]. Front. Med., 2021, 15(5): 704-717.
[12] Weijian Hang, Chen Chen, Xin A. Zhang, Dao Wen Wang. Endothelial dysfunction in COVID-19 calls for immediate attention: the emerging roles of the endothelium in inflammation caused by SARS-CoV-2[J]. Front. Med., 2021, 15(4): 638-643.
[13] Rongtao Lai, Tianhui Zhou, Xiaogang Xiang, Jie Lu, Haiguang Xin, Qing Xie. Neutralizing monoclonal antibodies present new prospects to treat SARS-CoV-2 infections[J]. Front. Med., 2021, 15(4): 644-648.
[14] Dongsheng Wang, Binqing Fu, Zhen Peng, Dongliang Yang, Mingfeng Han, Min Li, Yun Yang, Tianjun Yang, Liangye Sun, Wei Li, Wei Shi, Xin Yao, Yan Ma, Fei Xu, Xiaojing Wang, Jun Chen, Daqing Xia, Yubei Sun, Lin Dong, Jumei Wang, Xiaoyu Zhu, Min Zhang, Yonggang Zhou, Aijun Pan, Xiaowen Hu, Xiaodong Mei, Haiming Wei, Xiaoling Xu. Tocilizumab in patients with moderate or severe COVID-19: a randomized, controlled, open-label, multicenter trial[J]. Front. Med., 2021, 15(3): 486-494.
[15] Junnan Liang, Guannan Jin, Tongtong Liu, Jingyuan Wen, Ganxun Li, Lin Chen, Wei Wang, Yuwei Wang, Wei Liao, Jia Song, Zeyang Ding, Xiao-ping Chen, Bixiang Zhang. Clinical characteristics and risk factors for mortality in cancer patients with COVID-19[J]. Front. Med., 2021, 15(2): 264-274.
Viewed
Full text


Abstract

Cited

  Shared   
  Discussed