How should Masih Daneshvari Hospital in Tehran Prepare for Coronavirus Disease 2019

Abstract

In the first days of the year 2020, there was a report of an outbreak of Coronavirus respiratory tract infectious disease in Wuhan, China [1]. Coronavirus is a pathogen able to be transmitted from animals to human and spread from human to human [2]. This disease called COVID-19 is known as SARS-COV2, the complete genome sequence of which is screened by Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) analysis and patients’ tracheal secretion culture [3,4]. The genome of this virus as the seventh coronavirus that infects human, is similar %80 to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (SARS-COV), %50 to Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-COV), and %96 to Bat Coronavirus, and utilizes a cell receptor, Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme II (ACE2), also used by SARS [5]. Wuhan was put under quarantine on January 23, 2020 [6]. In mid-January, over 2800 positive cases were reported in China [7]. The first confirmed death from coronavirus infection was reported on January 9 [8]. On January 30 2020, WHO released a statement declaring the outbreak of novel coronavirus as a global health emergency [9] and on March 11 2020, it was declared a pandemic [10]. Coronavirus was officially declared to have entered Qom, Iran on February 18 2020 [11]. At that time, 27 hospitals across the country announced their readiness as referral hospitals to admit and care for patients with coronavirus, and Masih Daneshvari Hospital in Tehran was among the first hospitals that held its first emergency meeting immediately after its readiness announcement to the Ministry of Health and Medical Education of Iran on February 20, 2020, to provide effective strategies for the prevention of COVID-19 transmission in healthcare settings and for the referral and patient management.