Recommendations for the prevention, mitigation and containment of the emerging SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic in haemodialysis centres
Carlo Basile, Christian Combe, Francesco Pizzarelli, Adrian Covic, Andrew Davenport, Mehmet Kanbay, Dimitrios Kirmizis, Daniel Schneditz, Frank van der Sande, Sandip Mitra on behalf of the EUDIAL Working Group of ERA-EDTA
Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation, gfaa069, https://doi.org/10.1093/ndt/gfaa069
Published: 20 March 2020
Abstract
COVID-19, a disease caused by a novel coronavirus, is a major global human threat that has turned into a pandemic. This novel coronavirus has specifically high morbidity in the elderly and in comorbid populations. Uraemic patients on dialysis combine an intrinsic fragility and a very frequent burden of comorbidities with a specific setting in which many patients are repeatedly treated in the same area (haemodialysis centres). Moreover, if infected, the intensity of dialysis requiring specialized resources and staff is further complicated by requirements for isolation, control and prevention, putting healthcare systems under exceptional additional strain. Therefore, all measures to slow if not to eradicate the pandemic and to control unmanageably high incidence rates must be taken very seriously.
