Indian Society of Neuroanaesthesiology and Critical Care (ISNACC) position statement and advisory for the practice of neuroanesthesia during COVID-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a major health emergency in today's time. In December 2019, a cluster of pneumonia cases in Wuhan, China was attributed to a novel coronavirus. The World Health Organization declared it as a pandemic. As the majority of the cases suffering from COVID-19 are mildly symptomatic or asymptomatic, it becomes a great challenge to identify the infected persons in the absence of extensive testing. In the hospital environment, it can infect several other vulnerable patients and healthcare providers, significantly impacting the hospital services. Anesthesiologists are at an increased risk of COVID-19 transmission from the patients, as they are frequently involved in several aerosol-generating procedures. It is not possible to identify asymptomatic COVID-19 patients solely based on history-taking during their first point of contact with the anesthesiologists at the preanesthetic checkup clinic. Most of the neurosurgical conditions are of urgent in nature and cannot be postponed for a longer duration. In view of this, the position statement and practice advisory from the Indian Society of Neuroanaesthesiology and Critical Care (ISNACC) provides guidance to the practice of neuroanesthesia in the present scenario. The advisory has been prepared considering the current disease status of the COVID-19 pandemic, available literature, and consensus from experts in the field of neuroanesthesiology. Since the pandemic is still progressing and the nature of the disease is dynamic, readers are advised to constantly look for updated literature from ISNACC and other neurology and neurosurgical societies.