Mass Casualty Management due to Road Traffic Accidents in this Era of COVID-19 Pandemic: A Tertiary Care Institutional Experience

ABSTRACT

Background: In March 2020, the world health organization declared COVID-19 a worldwide pandemic. Countries introduced public health measures to contain and reduce its spread. The effect of mandated societal lockdown to reduce the transmission of corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on road traffic accidents is not known. For this we performed an in-depth analysis using data of emergency and trauma centre UPUMS, Saifai Materials and Methods: We reviewed data on total 2876 road traffic accident records in UPUMS, Saifai from January 1, 2020 through September 30, 2020. We treated March 20th as the first day of mandated societal lockdown and 1st July as the first day of re-opening Results: We have found that there is increase in road traffic accidents resulting in serious or fatal injuries during lockdown and post-lockdown period. Conclusion: Road traffic accidents are a prominent contributor to hospitalization and may negatively impact the existing hospital resources directed towards COVID-19. © 2023 DMICS.