Use of personal protective equipment against coronavirus disease 2019 by healthcare professionals in Wuhan, China: cross sectional study.

To examine the protective effects of appropriate personal protective equipment for frontline healthcare professionals who provided care for patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19). Cross sectional study. Four hospitals in Wuhan, China. 420 healthcare professionals (116 doctors and 304 nurses) who were deployed to Wuhan by two affiliated hospitals of Sun Yat-sen University and Nanfang Hospital of Southern Medical University for 6-8 weeks from 24 January to 7 April 2020. These study participants were provided with appropriate personal protective equipment to deliver healthcare to patients admitted to hospital with covid-19 and were involved in aerosol generating procedures. 77 healthcare professionals with no exposure history to covid-19 and 80 patients who had recovered from covid-19 were recruited to verify the accuracy of antibody testing. Covid-19 related symptoms (fever, cough, and dyspnoea) and evidence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection, defined as a positive test for virus specific nucleic acids in nasopharyngeal swabs, or a positive test for IgM or IgG antibodies in the serum samples. The average age of study participants was 35.8 years and 68.1% (286/420) were women. These study participants worked 4-6 hour shifts for an average of 5.4 days a week; they worked an average of 16.2 hours each week in intensive care units. All 420 study participants had direct contact with patients with covid-19 and performed at least one aerosol generating procedure. During the deployment period in Wuhan, none of the study participants reported covid-19 related symptoms. When the participants returned home, they all tested negative for SARS-CoV-2 specific nucleic acids and IgM or IgG antibodies (95% confidence interval 0.0 to 0.7%). Before a safe and effective vaccine becomes available, healthcare professionals remain susceptible to covid-19. Despite being at high risk of exposure, study participants were appropriately protected and did not contract infection or develop protective immunity against SARS-CoV-2. Healthcare systems must give priority to the procurement and distribution of personal protective equipment, and provide adequate training to healthcare professionals in its use.

Informations de copyright

© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2019. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

Competing interests: All authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form at www.icmje.org/coi_disclosure.pdf and declare: grant funding from the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University; no financial relationships with any organisations that might have an interest in the submitted work in the previous three years; no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work.