Kidney Transplantation during the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic in Israel: Experience from a Large-Volume Center

Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has affected tens of millions of people globally since it was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization on 11 March 2020. Since its outbreak in December 2019, the ongoing coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic has led to global social, economic and healthcare crises affecting millions of people and causing the death of hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. As with other fields of healthcare, the pandemic with its heavy workload imposed on hospital services and personnel significantly affected solid organ transplantation. Concerns for potential exposure to the virus and its related severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus type 2 (SARS-CoV2) have profoundly altered the process of organ donation and recovery, acceptance of organ offers, management of potential recipients and living donors, and above all transplanted and immunosuppressed patients. All those issues required prompt implementation of new practice measures and guidelines as well as continuous adaptations to the fluid and rapidly changing situation. Herein we describe a single transplant center experience with kidney transplantation during the COVID-19 pandemic; we review the national and institutional measures and restrictions undertaken in different phases of the ongoing event as well as the outcomes.

Keywords

• COVID-19 infections
• kidney transplantation
• immunosuppression
• anti-thymocyte globulin (ATG)
• Basiliximab