Chandra et al. in their recent paper published in Eye described the current situation regarding the use of personal protective equipment (PPE) for vitreoretinal surgery during COVID-19 [1]. They advised that appropriate PPE including FFP3 masks for surgeons and nurses be used during phacoemulsification and pars plana vitrectomy (PPV). We would like to inform readers that in Scotland, we have received guidance from Health Protection Scotland [2] that in conjunction with World Health Organisation Guidance from 2014 [3], there is no evidence of an increased risk of aerosol transmission in a list of procedures which includes phacoemulsification and PPV. This guidance has been agreed in collaboration with experts from New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group and Public Health England.
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Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Footnotes
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Change history
6/24/2020
This Article was originally published with an erroneous link in the reference details of reference 2. This has now been corrected in the PDF and HTML versions of this Article.
References
- 1.Chandra A, Haynes R, Burdon M, Laidlaw A, Neffendorf J, Eames I, et al. Personal protective equipment (PPE) for vitreoretinal surgery during COVID-19. Eye (Lond). 2020:1–4. [Epub ahead of print]. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed]
- 2.Health Protection Scotland Document www.hps.scot.nhs.uk Assessing the evidence base for medical procedures which create a higher risk of respiratory infection transmission from patient to healthcare worker. https://www.hps.scot.nhs.uk/web-resources-container/assessing-the-evidence-base-for-medical-procedures-which-create-a-higher-risk-of-respiratory-infection-transmission-from-patient-to-healthcare-worker/ (2020).
- 3.World Health Organization. Infection prevention and control of epidemic-and pandemic prone acute respiratory infections in health care. WHO guidelines. https://www.who.int/csr/bioriskreduction/infection_control/publication/en/ (2014). [PubMed]