Community eye-health and vision center guidelines during COVID-19 pandemic in India

The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (COVID-19) pandemic has disrupted our society on an unprecedented scale since its inception in December 2019. As the health-care system is finally re-organizing to mitigate the impact of the pandemic, it was necessary to re-structure primary eye ca...

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Autores principales: Vashist, Praveen, Senjam, Suraj S, Gupta, Vivek, Manna, Souvik, Agrawal, Surbhi, Gupta, Noopur, Sharma, Namrata, Sinha, Rajesh, Saxena, Rohit, Sachdev, Mahipal S
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Wolters Kluwer - Medknow 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7574078/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32587155
http://dx.doi.org/10.4103/ijo.IJO_1527_20
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author Vashist, Praveen
Senjam, Suraj S
Gupta, Vivek
Manna, Souvik
Agrawal, Surbhi
Gupta, Noopur
Sharma, Namrata
Sinha, Rajesh
Saxena, Rohit
Sachdev, Mahipal S
author_facet Vashist, Praveen
Senjam, Suraj S
Gupta, Vivek
Manna, Souvik
Agrawal, Surbhi
Gupta, Noopur
Sharma, Namrata
Sinha, Rajesh
Saxena, Rohit
Sachdev, Mahipal S
author_sort Vashist, Praveen
collection PubMed
description The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (COVID-19) pandemic has disrupted our society on an unprecedented scale since its inception in December 2019. As the health-care system is finally re-organizing to mitigate the impact of the pandemic, it was necessary to re-structure primary eye care (PEC) activities as well on the same lines. A consensus meeting was held with leading eye-care experts on 2(nd) May 2020 to prepare a roadmap for PEC in the days to come. Guidelines are needed for PEC activities like vision testing, refraction, optical dispensing, counseling, etc., Some of the activities at vision centers (VCs) may be postponed or modified in light of the current pandemic situation. PEC workers need to strictly follow social distancing norms (minimum 3 feet) for minimizing risk of exposure and need access to appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE), like gloves, masks and shields while examining beneficiaries. For optometrists, sterilization of instruments and encouraging the people to remain silent during the examination is recommended. Because conjunctivitis may be an early sign which can present at VCs, extra precautions in the form of PPE has to be ensured while examining such patients. This is also an opportunity to start running telemedicine clinics for all emergent cases that cannot be managed at the primary level. The guidelines also need to be updated based on the context of the working environment and changes in government directives from time to time.
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spelling pubmed-75740782020-10-22 Community eye-health and vision center guidelines during COVID-19 pandemic in India Vashist, Praveen Senjam, Suraj S Gupta, Vivek Manna, Souvik Agrawal, Surbhi Gupta, Noopur Sharma, Namrata Sinha, Rajesh Saxena, Rohit Sachdev, Mahipal S Indian J Ophthalmol Preferred Practice The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (COVID-19) pandemic has disrupted our society on an unprecedented scale since its inception in December 2019. As the health-care system is finally re-organizing to mitigate the impact of the pandemic, it was necessary to re-structure primary eye care (PEC) activities as well on the same lines. A consensus meeting was held with leading eye-care experts on 2(nd) May 2020 to prepare a roadmap for PEC in the days to come. Guidelines are needed for PEC activities like vision testing, refraction, optical dispensing, counseling, etc., Some of the activities at vision centers (VCs) may be postponed or modified in light of the current pandemic situation. PEC workers need to strictly follow social distancing norms (minimum 3 feet) for minimizing risk of exposure and need access to appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE), like gloves, masks and shields while examining beneficiaries. For optometrists, sterilization of instruments and encouraging the people to remain silent during the examination is recommended. Because conjunctivitis may be an early sign which can present at VCs, extra precautions in the form of PPE has to be ensured while examining such patients. This is also an opportunity to start running telemedicine clinics for all emergent cases that cannot be managed at the primary level. The guidelines also need to be updated based on the context of the working environment and changes in government directives from time to time. Wolters Kluwer - Medknow 2020-07 2020-06-25 /pmc/articles/PMC7574078/ /pubmed/32587155 http://dx.doi.org/10.4103/ijo.IJO_1527_20 Text en Copyright: © 2020 Indian Journal of Ophthalmology http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0 This is an open access journal, and articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms.
spellingShingle Preferred Practice
Vashist, Praveen
Senjam, Suraj S
Gupta, Vivek
Manna, Souvik
Agrawal, Surbhi
Gupta, Noopur
Sharma, Namrata
Sinha, Rajesh
Saxena, Rohit
Sachdev, Mahipal S
Community eye-health and vision center guidelines during COVID-19 pandemic in India
title Community eye-health and vision center guidelines during COVID-19 pandemic in India
title_full Community eye-health and vision center guidelines during COVID-19 pandemic in India
title_fullStr Community eye-health and vision center guidelines during COVID-19 pandemic in India
title_full_unstemmed Community eye-health and vision center guidelines during COVID-19 pandemic in India
title_short Community eye-health and vision center guidelines during COVID-19 pandemic in India
title_sort community eye-health and vision center guidelines during covid-19 pandemic in india
topic Preferred Practice
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7574078/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32587155
http://dx.doi.org/10.4103/ijo.IJO_1527_20
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