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The Risk and Prevention of Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia Infections Among Inpatients in Psychiatric Hospitals

2020; Springer Science+Business Media; Volume: 36; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1007/s12264-020-00476-9

1673-7067

Yuncheng Zhu, Liangliang Chen, Hai‐Feng Ji, Maomao Xi, Yiru Fang, Yi Li,

COVID-19 and healthcare impacts

Since the middle of December 2019, human-to-human transmission of novel coronavirus pneumonia (NCP, also called COVID-19) has occurred among close contacts [1].After the outbreak on January 21, 2020, it was swiftly included among the Class B infectious diseases stipulated in the Law of the People's Republic of China on the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases, and measures for prevention and control of Class A infectious diseases were adopted.At 21:27 on February 12, 2020, the China News Network updated information to include epidemic data from the National Health Commission and official channels in Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan regions: the highest death rate was in Wuhan City (Table 1).Overload of inpatients at hospitals may play a negative role in the overall therapeutic effect and contribute to the death rate.At the same time, with the related law promulgated, Wuhan Mental Health Center (WMHC) announced the closed management of inpatients (visit prohibited), and this was followed by other psychiatric hospitals nationwide.Unfortunately, on February 8, China News Weekly exclusively reported that nosocomial infection had occurred in WMHC.Up to February 8, * 50 patients and 30 medical staff in WMHC were diagnosed with NCP, so WMHC became the first psychiatric hospital in China with clustered nosocomial infections.The official spokesman of WMHC revealed to the media that delay of information on infections increased the chance of infection in the early stage, such as unawareness of the infection and the mode of transmission, as well as the possibility of an asymptomatic incubation period, similar to the situation of other general hospitals in Wuhan. Related Risk FactorsThree elements are responsible for the infection of hospitalized psychotic patients: source of infection (patients with NCP), transmission route (human-to-human droplet transmission), and susceptibility (patients without insight).A similar outbreak occurred in 2003 that has parallels with the emergence of NCP: the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), which killed 349 of 5327 probable cases (6.6%) reported in mainland China [2].Compared to the mean incubation period of 6.4 days of SARS [3], the 5.2 days of the 2019 new Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) means it is more infectious [1].Although