Anesthesia and COVID-19 pediatric patients

Abstract

Since December 2019, the world has faced the rapid spread of a new virus: SARS-CoV-2. Originating in Wuhan, it has spread quickly to hundreds of countries in the five continents, becoming a pandemia as of March 2020. We confront a highly contagious virus, capable of collapsing healthcare systems. Nearly 2% of infected individuals worldwide are children. They are usually asymptomatic, thus playing an important role in viral transmission. Less frequently, they can become critically ill. In this article we describe the epidemiology, available to this date, of COVID-19 in the pediatric population. This information will enable to suspect and detect possible COVID-19 (+) cases in the perioperative period and plan ahead patient management and protection of healthcare providers. Twenty-five to 30% of COVID-19 (+) cases worldwide occur in healthcare workers. It is for this reason that special personal protection equipment (PPE) must be used, together with usual contact and droplet precautions. Anesthesia procedures that involve airway management can produce infectious aerosol. In order to reduce risks, we make a series of recommendations on perioperative management of children at this time of pandemia, which are to be complemented with those already released by the Chilean Society of Anesthesiology (SACH).