Sud Randhir, Sud Sukrit
Institute of Digestive and Hepato-biliary Sciences, Medanta the Medicity, Gurgaon, Haryana, India.
J Dig Endosc. 2020 Mar;11(1):89-91. doi: 10.1055/s-0040-1712335.
Gastrointestinal tract endoscopy being an aerosol generating procedure increases the risk to staff and uninfected patients from a coronavirus disease 2019 patient. Social and physical distancing through "lockdown" has suppressed the spread of disease but will not eradicate it. Various endoscopy societies formulated guidelines to triage the patients and limit the work to only emergency and urgent cases and postpone "routine" endoscopies. Postlockdown infected vector pool will persist till an effective vaccine is widely available. Nonurgent cases cannot be postponed indefinitely. We need to identify infected symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals and create a safe environment for uninfected patients. Endoscopy staff protection through education, optimized manpower flow, and personal protective equipment usage and hand hygiene needs urgent attention. Proper environment sanitization, endoscope, and device reprocessing will remain important.
胃肠道内镜检查作为一种产生气溶胶的操作，会增加工作人员和未感染患者感染2019冠状病毒病患者的风险。通过“封锁”进行的社交和物理距离措施抑制了疾病的传播，但无法根除疾病。各种内镜学会制定了指南，对患者进行分类，将工作限制在仅急诊和紧急病例，并推迟“常规”内镜检查。封锁后受感染的传播媒介池将持续存在，直到有效疫苗广泛可用。非紧急病例不能无限期推迟。我们需要识别出有症状和无症状的感染者，并为未感染患者创造一个安全的环境。通过教育、优化人员流动、使用个人防护设备和手部卫生来保护内镜检查工作人员，这一需求亟待关注。适当的环境消毒、内镜及设备的再处理仍将很重要。
