The challenge of COVID-19 for a Clinical Microbiology Department.

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

To quantify the workload and cost overload that the COVID-19 pandemic has meant for a Clinical Microbiology laboratory in a real-life scenario.

Methods

We compared the number of samples received, their distribution, the human resources, and the budget of a Microbiology laboratory in the COVID pandemic (March-December 2020) with the same months of the previous year.

Results

the total number of samples processed in the Clinical Microbiology laboratory in March to December 2020 increased 96.70% with respect to 2019 (from 246,060 to 483,993 samples), reflecting an increment of 127.50% when expressed as samples/1000 admissions (from 6057 to 13,780). The increase in workload was mainly at the expense of the virology (+2058%) and serology (+86%) areas. Despite add

SUBMITTER: Catalan P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8117483 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature