The spread of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID‐19) has already reached a pandemic dimension within a few weeks. Italy has been one of the first countries dealing with the outbreak of COVID‐19, and severe measures have been adopted to limit viral transmission. The spread of COVID‐19 may have several implications in organ transplant activity that physicians should be aware of. The initial experience gained during the COVID‐19 outbreak shows that around 10% of infected patients in Italy need intensive care management to overcome the acute respiratory distress syndrome. Due to the exponential rise of infected patients we are now facing an actual risk of saturation of intensive care unit (ICU) beds. A restriction in the number of ICU beds available for both donors and transplant recipients may unfavorably influence the overall donation activity, and eventually lead to a reduced number of transplants. Preliminary Italian data show that a 25% reduction of procured organs has already occurred during the first 4 weeks of COVID‐19 outbreak. This underlines the need to closely monitor what will be further happening in ICUs due to the COVID‐19 spread in the attempt to preserve transplant activity, especially in Western countries where deceased donors represent the major organ resource.

中文翻译：

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意大利的 COVID-19 疫情：对器官移植计划的初步影响。


2019 年冠状病毒病 (COVID-19) 的传播在几周内已达到大流行的程度。意大利是最早应对 COVID-19 疫情的国家之一，并采取了严厉措施来限制病毒传播。医生应该意识到，COVID-19 的传播可能会对器官移植活动产生多种影响。 COVID-19 爆发期间获得的初步经验表明，意大利约 10% 的感染患者需要重症监护管理以克服急性呼吸窘迫综合征。由于受感染患者呈指数级增长，我们现在面临着重症监护病房 (ICU) 床位饱和的实际风险。捐赠者和移植受者可用的 ICU 床位数量的限制可能会对整体捐赠活动产生不利影响，并最终导致移植数量减少。意大利的初步数据显示，在 COVID-19 爆发的前 4 周内，获取的器官已经减少了 25%。这凸显出需要密切监测由于 COVID-19 传播而在 ICU 中进一步发生的情况，以试图保留移植活动，特别是在已故捐赠者代表主要器官资源的西方国家。