Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) technical guidance: Patient management

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) technical guidance: Patient management

Clinical management of severe acute respiratory infection when COVID-19 is suspected

This document is intended for clinicians taking care of hospitalised adult and paediatric patients with severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) when a nCoV infection is suspected. It is not meant to replace clinical judgment or specialist consultation but rather to strengthen clinical management of these patients and provide to up-to-date guidance. Best practices for SARI including IPC and optimized supportive care for severely ill patients are essential.  

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Severe Acute Respiratory Infections Treatment Centre 

Practical manual to set up and manage a SARI treatment centre and a SARI screening

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Considerations for quarantine of individuals in the context of containment for coronavirus disease (COVID-19)

The purpose of this document is to offer guidance to Member States on quarantine measures for individuals in the context of COVID-19. It is intended for those responsible for establishing local or national policy for quarantine of individuals, and adherence to infection prevention and control measures. 

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Home care for patients with suspected novel coronavirus (nCoV) infection presenting with mild symptoms and management of contacts

WHO has developed this rapid advice note to meet the need for recommendations on the safe home care for patients with suspected novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) infection presenting with mild symptoms and public health measures

related to management of asymptomatic contacts.

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Operational considerations for case management of COVID-19 in health facility and community

This document is intended to guide the care of COVID-19 patients as the response capacity of health systems is challenged; to ensure that COVID-19 patients can access life-saving treatment, without compromising public health objectives and safety of health workers.

It promotes two key messages: 

1. Key public health interventions regardless of transmission scenario; and 

2. Key action steps to be taken by transmission scenario to enable timely surge of clinical operations.

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Maintaining a safe and adequate blood supply during the pandemic outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) 

This document provides interim guidance on the management of the blood supply in response to the pandemic outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19). It emphasizes the importance of being prepared and responding quickly and outlines key actions and measures that the blood services should take to mitigate the potential risk to the safety and sufficiency of the blood supplies during the pandemic. 

It should be read in conjunction with WHO Guidance for National Blood Services on Protecting the Blood Supply During Infectious Disease Outbreaks, which provides general guidance on the development of national plans to respond to any emerging infectious threats to the sufficiency or safety of the blood supply.

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Global COVID-19 Clinical Characterization Case Record Form and new data platform for anonymized COVID-19 clinical data

The rapid clinical characterization case record form (clinical CRF) is intended to provide member states with a standardized approach to collect clinical data in order to better understand the natural history of disease and describe clinical phenotypes and treatment interventions (i.e. clinical characterization).  By using one standardized clinical data tool, there is potential for clinical data from around the world to be aggregated; in order to learn more to inform the public health response and prepare for large scale clinical trials. 

The clinical characterization case record form (clinical CRF) is intended to provide member states with a standardized approach to collect clinical data in order to better understand the natural history of disease and describe clinical phenotypes and treatment interventions (i.e. clinical characterization).  By using one standardized clinical data tool, there is potential for clinical data from around the world to be aggregated; in order to learn more to inform the public health response and prepare for large scale clinical trials. 

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- Access the pregnancy module of case report form

Data platform for anonymized COVID-19 clinical data

In response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) is launching a global COVID-19 Anonymized Clinical Data Platform (the “COVID-19 Data Platform”) to enable State Parties to the International Health Regulations (IHR) (2005) to share with WHO anonymized clinical data and information related to patients with suspected or confirmed infections with the 2019-nCoV (collectively “Anonymized COVID-19 Data”).

The Anonymized COVID-19 data received from State Parties through the COVID-19 Data Platform will remain property of the contributing State Party and will be used by WHO for purposes of verification, assessment and assistance pursuant to the IHR (2005), including to inform the public health and clinical operation response in connection with the COVID-19 outbreak. To help achieve such purposes, WHO will establish an independent Clinical Advisory Group to advise WHO on global reporting and analysis of the Anonymized COVID-19 Data.

State Parties are invited to contribute Anonymized COVID-19 Data to the COVID-19 Data Platform. State Parties should please contact WHO at EDCARN@who.int to obtain more information about, including log-in credentials for, the COVID-19 Platform.

To preserve the security and confidentiality of the Anonymized COVID-19 Data, State Parties are respectfully requested to take all necessary measures to protect their respective log-in credentials and passwords to the COVID-19 Data Platform.

The Anonymized COVID-19 Data will be stored in the COVID-19 Data Platform, which is a secured, access-limited, password protected electronic platform that is hosted on behalf of WHO by a third-party platform provider. WHO and such party have entered into contractual arrangements requiring the latter, among other things: (i) to protect the confidentiality and prevent the unauthorized disclosure of the Anonymized COVID-19 Data; (ii) to refrain from using the Anonymized COVID-19 Data for any purpose other than providing hosting services to WHO in accordance with the contractual arrangements; and (ii) to implement and maintain appropriate technical and organizational security measures to protect the security of the Anonymized COVID-19 Data and the COVID-19 Data Platform. In accordance with Article 11(4) of the IHR (2005), WHO will not make the Anonymized-COVID-19 Data generally available to other State Parties until such time as any of the conditions set forth in paragraph 2 of such Article 11 are first met and following consultation with affected countries.

Pursuant to that same Article 11, WHO will not make Anonymized -COVID-19 data available to the public, unless and until Anonymized -COVID-19 data has already been made available to State Parties, and provided that other information about the -COVID-19 epidemic has already become publicly available and there is a need for the dissemination of authoritative and independent information. For more information, please contact: EDCARN@who.int .

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WHO COVID-19 Essential Supplies Forecasting Tool

The WHO COVID-19 Essential Supplies Forecasting Tool (ESFT) is designed to help governments, partners, and other stakeholders to estimate potential requirements for essential supplies to respond to the current pandemic of COVID-19. Although it gives users with an estimation of the number of cases, this calculator is not an epidemiological calculator.  

The focus of this tool is to forecast essential supplies: it includes estimation of personal protective equipment, diagnostic equipment, biomedical equipment for case management, essential drugs for supportive care, and consumable medical supplies.

The COVID-19 ESFT tool is intended to be complimentary to the Health Workforce tools (Adaptt and the Workforce Estimator).  Both tools use the same base clinical attack rate ranges and classify health workforce using ILO ISCO codes, but their outputs are intentionally different due to their primary focus.

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Reference

https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/technical-guidance/patient-management