Cancer care during the COVID-19 pandemic: a perspective from Saudi Arabia.

ABSTRACT

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic continues to disrupt many healthcare settings worldwide including cancer care. COVID-19 has been associated with worse outcomes amongst cancer patients. Saudi Arabia has experienced several Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) outbreaks that affected the continuity of cancer care. In this paper, we describe how Saudi Arabia responded to COVID-19, how cancer care was re-restructured during this pandemic and how the recent MERS-CoV experience may have improved the Saudi response to COVID-19.