Tan, Chee Yang and Theseira, Amelia Marie and Ahmad Zubaidi, Syukri and Atiya, Nadia and Sanmugam, Anand and Singaravel, Srihari and Nah, Shireen Anne (2022) Universal COVID-19 pre-procedural swabs in children in a developing country: A comparison of findings over two transmission waves. Proceedings of Singapore Healthcare, 31. ISSN 2010-1058, DOI https://doi.org/10.1177/20101058221131656.
Full text not available from this repository.Abstract
Aim: The Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has strained healthcare systems worldwide. Some institutions have implemented additional precautionary measures such as pre-procedural swabbing (PPS) to reduce transmission in patients and healthcare workers. We evaluate our experience with universal pre-procedural screening for COVID-19 in low-risk pediatric patients. Methods: We performed a retrospective review of patients aged 18 years and below who underwent severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (rRT-PCR) assay swabs in our center over two waves (1st May 2020 to 31st July 2020 and 1st April 2021 to 30th June 2021). We included patients who underwent rRT-PCR for SARS-CoV-2 prior to any procedures requiring general anesthesia and were deemed low risk for COVID-19 according to our institutional screening criteria. All study patients were followed up for 14 days post-procedure. Results: Of 2065 swabs done for patients aged 18 years and below during the study period, 645 (31.2) were pre-procedural swabs. Patients were aged 4.2 years (median, interquartile range: 1.6 years–9.8 years). Two patients (0.3) tested positive for COVID-19 by PPS, detected during Period 2 – both had risk criteria which were overlooked by healthcare workers. Within 14 days post-procedure, 10 patients had unscheduled readmissions and 15 required repeat rRT-PCR, all of which were negative. Conclusions: In patients deemed low risk for COVID-19 infection according to our screening criteria, routine pre-procedural swabbing returns a low positive rate. Our findings can guide screening protocols at institutions that provide surgical services during the COVID-19 pandemic. © The Author(s) 2022.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Funders: | None |
| Additional Information: | Cited by: 0; All Open Access, Gold Open Access |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | RNA polymerase; Adolescent; Adult; Article; Blood donor; Breast surgery; Child; Comparative study; Coronavirus disease 2019; COVID-19 testing; Developing country; Disease surveillance; Dyspnea; Elective surgery; Emergency surgery; Endoscopy; Female; Fever; Gastroenterology; General anesthesia; Headache; Health care personnel; Health care system; Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation; Hospital readmission; Human; Infant; Laparoscopy; Length of stay; Male; Maxillofacial surgery; Neurosurgery; Newborn; Ophthalmology; Orthopedics; Otorhinolaryngology; Pandemic; Pediatric patient; Pediatrics; Plastic surgery; Polymerase chain reaction; Preoperative care; Prospective study; Real time reverse Transcription polymerase chain reaction; Retrospective study; Risk factor; SARS coronavirus; Sore throat; Swabbing; Thorax surgery; Tonsillitis; Vaccination; Virus transmission |
| Subjects: | R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine R Medicine > RJ Pediatrics |
| Divisions: | Faculty of Medicine Faculty of Medicine > Surgery Department |
| Depositing User: | Ms. Juhaida Abd Rahim |
| Date Deposited: | 30 Nov 2023 08:04 |
| Last Modified: | 01 Dec 2023 08:51 |
| URI: | http://eprints.um.edu.my/id/eprint/43965 |
Actions (login required)
 |
View Item |
