Introduction: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a global emergency affecting a majority of countries all over the world. Burkina Faso recorded its first confirmed case during the postpartum period. This study aimed at reporting experiences related to COVID-19 case management in a postpartum period.
The case: The patient was a 26-years old woman in her 5th pregnancy, 4th childbirth with no medical history. She was referred by the Regional Hospital Center of Dori (located 300 kilometers from the Capital Ouagadougou) for a kidney failure that appeared 21 days after a cesarean section. The clinical examination and preliminary laboratory results after admission to the Yalgado Ouedraogo Teaching Hospital (YOTH) highlighted a poor general condition, an Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS), an infectious syndrome and a kidney failure. During the patient interview, there was no travel history or known contact with a suspected COVID-19 case. However, based on the symptoms presented in the patient, one of the core diagnostic hypotheses included the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) associated with an acute pulmonary edema and a kidney failure. While waiting for the patient transfer to the nephrology department for starting the dialysis, the following treatment was administered: Oxygen therapy, antipyretics, antibiotics and injectable diuretics. Moreover, additional lab tests were ordered for COVID-19 investigation. Unfortunately, after the first hospital admission day, the patient condition deteriorated, leading rapidly to the patient death. Forty-eight hours later the death, the tests’ results came back positive to COVID-19, confirming therefore the first national known case of COVID-19 in a postpartum period.
Conclusion: Delay in receiving the COVID-19 testing results, a lack of medical training to early detect COVID-19 cases and an absence of COVID-19 case management guidelines were found as major diagnostic issues in the early phase of the epidemic in Burkina Faso. Additional factors such as comorbidities seemed to have played an essential role in worsening the clinical condition of the patient. However, further studies using in-depth statistical methodologies are needed to analyze the association between maternal postpartum period and COVID-19 disease.

Keywords:Case report; COVID-19; Diagnostic issues; Postpartum period; Burkina Faso

Abbreviations: WHO: World Health Organization; YOTH: Yalgado Ouedraogo Teaching Hospital; PCR: Polymerase Chain Reaction