Abstract

It is claimed that, COVID-19 pandemic is mostly affecting people who have concomitant health problems and who are immunocompromised. By definition all transplant patients can be regarded as immunocompromised. We made a phone survey to understand the effect of this pandemic on our liver transplanted patients. This phone survey was performed between 1-5 June by our medical staff. We contacted 584 of our patients and asked them a specific set of questions. COVID-19 infection was found only in 4 of 584 (0, 7%) transplanted patients. There was no mortality. Almost 50% of patients did not have any concern or fear from COVID-19 infection. Most of them define themselves compliant with rules like social distancing, mask wearing and hand washing. 98% of the patients didn’t have any difficulty to reach to medical assistance and thought to manipulate their immunosuppressive dosages. Our phone survey showed that so far COVID-19 infection among immunosuppressive patients is not a bigger problem compared to normal population. And universal rules as social distancing mask and handwashing seems to be enough for prevention.

Keywords:COVID-19; Liver transplantation; SARS Pandemic