• Tze Ping Loh, Andrea Rita Horvath, Cheng-Bin Wang, David Koch, Giuseppe Lippi, Nicasio Mancini, Maurizio Ferrari, Robert Hawkins, Sunil Sethi, Khosrow Adeli, and International Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine Taskforce on COVID-19.
• Department of Laboratory Medicine, National University Hospital, 5 Lower Kent Ridge Road, Singapore 119074, Singapore, Phone: (+65) 67724345, Fax: (+65) 67771613.
• Clin Chem Lab Med. 2020 Aug 27; 58 (9): 1433-1440.

ObjectivesA global survey was conducted by the IFCC Task Force on COVID-19 to better understand how general biochemistry laboratories manage the pre-analytical, analytical and post-analytical processes to mitigate biohazard risks during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.MethodsAn electronic survey was developed to record the general characteristics of the laboratory, as well as the pre-analytical, analytical, post-analytical and operational practices of biochemistry laboratories that are managing clinical samples of patients with COVID-19.ResultsA total of 1210 submissions were included in the analysis. The majority of responses came from hospital central/core laboratories that serve hospital patient groups and handle moderate daily sample volumes. There has been a decrease in the use of pneumatic tube transport, increase in hand delivery and increase in number of layers of plastic bags for samples of patients with clinically suspected or confirmed COVID-19. Surgical face masks and gloves are the most commonly used personal protective equipment (PPE). Just >50% of the laboratories did not perform an additional decontamination step on the instrument after analysis of samples from patients with clinically suspected or confirmed COVID-19. A fifth of laboratories disallowed add-on testing on these samples. Less than a quarter of laboratories autoclaved their samples prior to disposal.ConclusionsThe survey responses showed wide variation in pre-analytical, analytical and post-analytical practices in terms of PPE adoption and biosafety processes. It is likely that many of the suboptimal biosafety practices are related to practical local factors, such as limited PPE availability and lack of automated instrumentation.

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