South African healthcare workers and COVID-19: a shared responsibility to protect a precious and limited resource

Abstract

South African healthcare workers and COVID-19: A shared responsibility to protect a precious and limited resource To the Editor: Healthcare workers (HCWs) in African countries face high risks of occupational exposure to many pathogens, including tuberculosis, measles, HIV and Ebola. [1,2] The novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 poses an arguably greater threat to African HCWs than any other infectious agent to date. Data from countries with established epidemics show that HCWs experience high rates of COVID-19 infection, morbidity and mortality. In the USA, 19% of COVID-19 cases whose occupational status was known were HCWs (9 282/49 000), [3] and >90 000 HCW COVID-19 infections were documented in 30 countries, with 260 deaths in nurses, by early May 2020. [4] In South Africa (SA), on 6 May, Minister Zweli Mkhize reported that 511 HCWs had tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 (7% of the national total), with nurses accounting for 53% of total HCW cases. [5] This open-access article is distributed under Creative Commons licence CC-BY-NC 4.0.

Total Number and Characteristics of Health Care Workers in an Emergency Department with COVID-19 during a six-month period encompassing the first wave of the COVID-19 outbreak in Gauteng, South Africa

“…HCWs in Africa are familiar with occupational exposure to many pathogens; however, SARS-CoV-2 currently poses an arguably greater threat to HCWs than any other infectious agent to date. (11) Studies suggest that HCWs have a COVID-19 infection rate of up to 11% which is higher than in the general population (12) with studies from the United Kingdom and the USA demonstrating that frontline HCWs were 3.4 times more likely than the general population to test positive for COVID-19, after adjusting for testing patterns. (13) The current study demonstrated that 24% of the HCWs based in the ED developed symptomatic COVID-19 over the study period.…”

Strengthening Social Compact and Innovative Health Sector Collaborations in Addressing COVID-19 in South African Workplaces

“…HWs remain at the highest risk of SARS-CoV-2 infections globally and in South Africa (Figure 1). 15,16 World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates indicated that up to 14% of COVID-19 cases were attributable to HWs. 17 The incidence of infection in HWs at a major tertiary hospital in Gauteng province, South Africa was reported to be 132.1 infections per 1000 person-months (95% confidence interval, 111.8-156.2).…”

Keeping nurses engaged during COVID-19: An i-deal perspective

“…In this regard, nurses were required to work longer hours, under increased restrictions and often unfamiliar settings, while continuously wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) (Dramowski et al, 2020). Physical exhaustion, separation from family, and losing loved ones and colleagues resulted in nurses' evaluating their career paths.…”

“…Physical exhaustion, separation from family, and losing loved ones and colleagues resulted in nurses' evaluating their career paths. The pressures of the pandemic deepened the challenges confronting nurses within their working environment (Dramowski et al, 2020). Nurses are expected to deliver quality healthcare, save lives and achieve set organisational goals, despite the challenges they experience (Shamian et al, 2016).…”