Dear friends and colleagues,
Nowadays, we are experiencing an outbreak of a novel betacoronavirus known as severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). As of March 26th, 2020, the rapid spread of the virus has caused more than 525.000 cases and almost 25.000 deaths in all over the world, with USA, China, Italy and Spain reporting the highest number of positive cases and mortality rates. WHO has declared the 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), caused by SARS-CoV-2, a public health emergency of international concern.
Patients with pulmonary hypertension have an overall worse performance status and prognosis than the general population. Therefore, in case of coronavirus infection, they might have limited clinical and hemodynamic reserve to face different forms of COVID-19, even mild paucisymptomatic presentations. As a rare disease, no data regarding this situation is available at this time. Moreover, as the pandemic progresses, these patients will become infected, and will need medical support in different disease stages.
At this moment, an international registry of PH patients with COVID-19 infection is mandatory, in order to 1) obtain information about incidence, evolution and prognosis of this subset of patients, 2) share experiences among professionals of different countries, aiming to achieve enough data to take make difficult decisions with young patients at this time of scarce intensive care supplies, 3) detect PAH specific drugs interactions with COVID-19 treatment, and finally 4) create an algorithm based on real data to help physicians manage these complex patients.
We want to encourage you all to contribute to the PAH - COVID register registry we are currently working on. When facing a new enemy, it is crucial to get accurate information to better deal with it. We suggest you actively collect all COVID-PAH patient data from now on. We will send you more information shortly.
Stay strong and stay safe.
On behalf of the Working Group Nucleus
Stephan Rosenkranz
Chairman of WG
Our mission: To reduce the burden of cardiovascular disease.