Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on routine surveillance for adults with chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection in the UK.
Wellcome Open Res
; 7: 51, 2022.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-38721280
ABSTRACT
Background:
To determine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the population with chronic Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection under hospital follow-up in the UK, we quantified the coverage and frequency of measurements of biomarkers used for routine surveillance (alanine transferase [ALT] and HBV viral load).Methods:
We used anonymized electronic health record data from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Informatics Collaborative (HIC) pipeline representing five UK National Health Service (NHS) Trusts.Results:
We report significant reductions in surveillance of both biomarkers during the pandemic compared to pre-COVID-19 years, both in terms of the proportion of patients who had ≥1 measurement annually, and the mean number of measurements per patient.Conclusions:
These results demonstrate the real-time utility of HIC data in monitoring health-care provision, and support interventions to provide catch-up services to minimise the impact of the pandemic. Further investigation is required to determine whether these disruptions will be associated with increased rates of adverse chronic HBV outcomes.
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Language:
En
Journal:
Wellcome Open Res
Year:
2022
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country:
United kingdom