ESCRS & Eurotimes - COVID 19 Update
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A MESSAGE FROM THE ESCRS PRESIDENT
24 March 2020
Dear Colleagues
As we progress further into this crisis, we realise more and more how important it is to keep our communications open and continue to share our ideas and experiences.
I see today that our American colleagues have initiated the protocols that most of our members in Europe are following i.e. to cancel all eye care that is not urgent or emergent.
We also received notice that the ASCRS and WCC conferences in May have been cancelled and we will very much miss meeting with our American colleagues. But, also in a first sign of optimism the APAO meeting has been rescheduled in China for summer 2020.
Today we bring you news from Belgium where Marie-Jose Tassignon, former ESCRS President, tells us she is still operating on babies because of the possibility of severe vision loss if surgery is delayed. And we hear about the challenges in keeping a private practice open in these times from Johannes Blanckaert, President of the Belgian Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons.
We are very grateful to our colleagues who have taken the time to share their lives with us. It might become more difficult for us to find this extra time in the next weeks, but we will continue to publish timely news on COVID 19 for the ophthalmology community from ESCRS.
Please stay safe and well.
Prof. dr Rudy MMA Nuijts
ESCRS President
UPDATE ON COVID-19 SITUATION IN BELGIUM FROM DR GUY SALLET
Social and medical care has changed dramatically in Belgium. Dr Guy Sallet describes how ophthalmic practice changed over the course of one week.
“My thoughts also go to our colleagues and population in Italy and Spain, who suffer the most and I hope we in Belgium can avoid these overcrowded IC units.”
BELGIUM TACKLES COVID-19
Former ESCRS President Marie-José Tassignon remains optimistic about the battle against COVID-19 in her native Belgium.
“We started quite early to organise and to decrease the number of contacts with patients and the regulations about wearing masks have been implemented,” she said in an interview with EuroTimes. “From last week on, the immediate postoperative treatment and postoperative follow-up is done by phone."
CORONAVIRUS AND PRIVATE PRACTICE IN BELGIUM
Private practice is in a challenging place right now in Belgian. All elective procedures are cancelled at least until April because of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Dr Johan Blanckaert, President of the Belgian Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons. “The guidelines are very clear. Everything that’s not urgent or not necessary, all that type of medical treatment needs to be considered elective and can be postponed,” he said in an interview with EuroTimes.
BELGIAN OPHTHALMOLOGISTS ARE WEATHERING THE STORM
"We’re in this together, and I can do my part. I’m still nervous, but I’m not afraid. I might be a mere foot-soldier marching to the drum beaten by someone else. But I stand shoulder to shoulder with my colleagues, with my friends, saying ‘bring it on’," says Dr Sorcha Ní Dhubhghaill MB PhD MRCSI(Ophth) FEBO.
"If there's one thing I didn't anticipate about the coronavirus outbreak, it's how useless it makes me feel. I love being an ophthalmologist. I wouldn't want to change that. But at a time like this, it’s hard not to feel that if only I had opted for a different specialty, I could have contributed more."
COVID-19 VACCINE TRIAL UNDER WAY
The first clinical trial of a vaccine targeting coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has begun at Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute in Seattle, USA. If successful, the vaccine will prevent infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 in patients who have not previously been exposed.
Developed by researchers at Moderna Inc, a biotechnology firm in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, with financial and technical support from the USA National Institute of Allergy and Immunology (NIAID) Vaccine Research Center, the mRNA-1273 vaccine targets the spikes on the coronavirus surface that attach to and allow it to enter human cells.
