Endoscopy works during the pandemic of coronavirus COVID‐19: recommendations by the Chinese Society of Digestive Endoscopy
Ningli Chai, Zhechuan Mei, Wengang Zhang, Chen Du, Xiangyao Wang, Longsong Li, Yan Ma, Jiale Zou, Xiaowei Tang, Nanjun Wang, Jiancong Feng, Enqiang Linghu
Abstract
Since December 2019, a novel coronavirus disease, COVID-19, has occurred in China and has spread around the world rapidly. As an acute respiratory infectious disease, COVID-19 has been included in type B infectious diseases and managed according to the standard of type A infectious disease in China. Given the high risk of COVID-19 infection during endoscopic procedures via an airborne route, the Chinese Society of Digestive Endoscopy issued a series of recommendations to guide the endoscopy works in China during the pandemic. To the best of our knowledge, no new infectious case of COVID-19 resulting from endoscopic procedures has been reported in China to date. Here, these recommendations are integrated to provide guidance about the prevention of COVID-19 for endoscopists. The recommendations include advice about postponing non-urgent endoscopies, excluding the possibility of COVID-19 in patients undergoing endoscopy, protection of medical staff from coronavirus infection, and cleaning of endoscopy centres.