Surviving Sepsis Campaign releases COVID-19 guidance

In December 2019, a brand new acute respiratory virus called COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) caused an epidemic in Wuhan, China, and in a couple of short months, it grew to unprecedented rates of infection and mortality worldwide, resulting in a pandemic. Eighty percent of COVID-19 patients experience only mild symptoms and get well inside 2 weeks. The remaining 20% ​​of affected individuals aren’t so lucky; they change into critically unwell with acute respiratory failure, acute respiratory distress syndrome, and shock.

The World Health Organization (WHO), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and other global health organizations have developed recommendations for screening, infection control, and diagnostics for noncritically unwell populations; there aren’t any recommendations for critically unwell patients.

In response to this need, the Surviving Sepsis Campaign collaborated with leading experts from 12 countries all over the world, many with direct experience caring for these patients, to develop guidelines for the management of critically unwell patients with COVID-19. The culmination of their work is Surviving Sepsis Campaign: Guidelines on the Management of Critically Ill Adults with Coronavirus Disease 2019.

Their work covers five areas, including infection control, laboratory diagnostics, haemodynamic support, ventilatory support and COVID-19 therapy. The guidelines have been accepted and will likely be published within the journal of the Society of Critical Care Medicine and , the journal of the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine.

For those of us practicing critical care, these guidelines are helpful as we face an unprecedented influx of patients requiring our services and expertise. The guidelines include recommendations for wearing the suitable style of mask, acute resuscitation with balanced/buffered crystalloids, oxygenation and ventilation, and optimizing hemodynamics.

While there’s currently no cure for COVID-19, these guidelines offer us a start in evidence-based, best-practice recommendations to assist us make clinical decisions. Throughout history, healthcare professionals have faced situations wherein they’ve had to mix their expertise with a spirit of inquiry to find out which interventions have the very best effectiveness and outcomes. Together, as a unified, global healthcare team, we’ll learn the right way to best take care of these patients.

Full guideline: Surviving Sepsis Campaign: Guidelines for the treatment of critically unwell adults with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)