COVID-19 impact on health care workers

ABSTRACT

Novel Corona Virus causes COVID 19 (Corona Virus Disease of 2019) infection. In December 2019, SARS(Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome)-CoV-2, was first recognized in Wuhan, China. Genetic sequencing of the virus suggests that SARS-CoV-2 is a beta –coronavirus;which is intimately linked to the SARS virus. Mostly patient develop mild or uncomplicated illness, but 14% often them leads to severe disease which needs hospitalization and oxygen therapy and among them 5% need intensive care.[1]. Health Care employees are at the frontline of this pandemic taking care of infected patients and thereby are at a greater risk of acquiring infection. Health workers impart a crucial job not only in the management of the sick, but also ensures adequacy of infection control and its prevention of infection. Systematic literature are scarce but available sources reflect an infection rate of 1% among health care workers (HCW’s) with female preponderance. HCW’s of all ages got infected but those with age greater than 55 years had high mortality after being infected. Case fatality rate among HCW’s varied across the globe with 0.9% in China to almost 6.1% in India. Ignorance about the epidemiology and transmission of the disease, lack of protective gears due to epidemic unpreparedness were main attributable factors for infection in HCW’s. This pandemic has shown great impact on mental health as well as on social wellbeing of health care workers. A proportion of the workforce are faced with depression(22.8%),insomnia(34.3%) and anxiety disorders(23.2%) leading to untoward consequences in few cases. Understanding COVID–19 infection and its impact on health workers is crucial not only for characterizing the transmission pattern of the virus but also as a means of prevention of the infection amongst the providers of health care who have a key role in saving the world from this pandemic.