Cardiovascular Impacts of COVID-19 Pandemic: From Presentation to Management: Current and Future Perspectives

Corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic represents a global unprecedented healthcare crisis that results in respiratory syndrome and can cause remarkable cardiovascular impacts in form of myocardial injury, myocarditis, heart failure and arrhythmia. This review aimed to provide clinical landscape of this novel virus in the context of cardiovascular system involvement, in addition to explore future perspectives regarding response of healthcare system to this outbreak. The study showed that elderly patients and those with comorbidities are most susceptible for this infection, and will have the worst prognosis. Poor prognostic determinants for this disease were higher C-reactive protein, IL-6, ferritin, serum troponin and NT-ProBNP. Considering prominent role of COVID19 pandemic on cardiovascular health and care on multiple levels there is no time better than now for cardiology community to play a key role in fighting this pandemic globally in form of solidarity with other specialities and accelerating knowledge about this health threat in addition to adopt new perspectives on learning and training to face this unprecedented crisis.

Are Doctors Protected Enough During COVID-19? A Cross-Sectional Study of Physician Mortality Numbers and Characteristics in South Asia (preprint)

Background:The highly contagious nature of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) places physicians in South Asia at a high risk of contracting the infection. Accordingly, we conducted this review to provide an up to date account of physician deaths in South Asia during the COVID-19 pandemic and to analyze and compare the different characteristics associated with physician mortality amongst the countries of the region.Study Design:Cross-Sectional StudyMethodology:We performed a review study by using published news reports on the websites of news agencies from 9 selected countries in South Asia. Our study included only those physicians and doctors who died after contracting COVID-19 from their respective workplaces. All available data about the country of origin, type of, sex, age, medical or surgical specialty, and date of death were included.Results:The total number of physician deaths reported due to COVID-19 in our study was 170, with half (87/170, 51%) of the deaths reported from Iran. Male physicians' death was reported to be 145 (145/170=85%). Internal Medicine (58, 43%) was the most severely affected sub-specialty. The highest physician mortality rate in the general population recorded in Afghanistan (27/1000 deaths).ConclusionAn increased number of physician deaths, owing to COVID-19, is seen in South Asia. This could be due to decreased personal protective equipment and the poor health care management systems of the countries in the region to combat the pandemic. Future studies should provide a detailed account of characteristics associated with physician mortalities along with the main complications arising due to the virus.

Social stigmatisation among COVID-19 patients: addressing a potential source of COVID-19 transmission to healthcare staff in cardiac emergency and cardiac care units

During our routine work, we noticed an increased incidence of COVID-19 diagnoses among patients in the cardiac unit, which led to an exponential increase in COVID-19 cases among hospital staff. We found that patients hid their symptoms from the emergency doctors and attributed those symptoms to cardiac or other causes. Social stigmatisation appeared to be the root cause for hiding their symptoms. Hence, we recommended a strategy to introduce psychological counselling of patients who were suspected to be infected with COVID-19, with a normal cardiac workup to overcome social stigmatisation and save our general wards from COVID-19.