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World J Clin Cases. Apr 6, 2021; 9(10): 2170-2180
Published online Apr 6, 2021. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v9.i10.2170
SARS-CoV-2, surgeons and surgical masks
Mohammad Ibrahim Khalil, Gouri Rani Banik, Sarab Mansoor, Amani S Alqahtani, Harunor Rashid
Mohammad Ibrahim Khalil, Department of Surgery, Dhaka Medical College Hospital, Dhaka 1000, Bangladesh
Gouri Rani Banik, Clinical Research Unit, The Department of Medicine, University of New South Wales, Sydney 2217, New South Wales, Australia
Gouri Rani Banik, National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance, The Children’s Hospital at Westmead and the University of Sydney, Westmead 2145, New South Wales, Australia
Sarab Mansoor, The University of Sydney School of Pharmacy, Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney, Sydney 2006, New South Wales, Australia
Amani S Alqahtani, Research Department, Saudi Food and Drug Authority, Riyadh 13312, Saudi Arabia
Harunor Rashid, National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance, The Children's Hospital at Westmead, and the University of Sydney, Westmead 2145, New South Wales, Australia
Harunor Rashid, Discipline of Child and Adolescent Health, the Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney, Sydney 2145, New South Wales, Australia
Harunor Rashid, Marie Bashir Institute for Infectious Diseases and Biosecurity, School of Biological Sciences and Sydney Medical School, The University of Sydney, Westmead 2145, New South Wales, Australia
Author contributions: Khalil MI and Rashid H conceived the idea; Banik GR and Rashid H conducted literature search; Mansoor S, Banik GR, Alqahtani AS and Rashid H sifted the titles, identified full texts, created the content; Khalil MI, Banik GR and Rashid H abstracted the data; Rashid H and Banik GR conducted data synthesis and formal analysis; Mansoor S crafted the background; Rashid H prepared the Figure 1; all authors contributed to writing the original draft, review and editing.
Conflict-of-interest statement: There is none to declare.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Harunor Rashid, MD, Associate Professor, National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance, The Children's Hospital at Westmead, and the University of Sydney, Cnr Hawkesbury Road and Hainsworth Street, Locked Bag 4001, Westmead 2145, New South Wales, Australia. harunor.rashid@health.nsw.gov.au
Received: December 1, 2020
Peer-review started: December 1, 2020
First decision: December 13, 2020
Revised: December 25, 2020
Accepted: February 12, 2021
Article in press: February 12, 2021
Published online: April 6, 2021
Core Tip

Core Tip: The risk of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) among surgeons is unknown. By searching Medline we identified 14 primary studies that provided data on severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus infection among surgeons and identified 11 systematic reviews that provided evidence on the role of facemask against respiratory viral infection among health professionals. About 14% of health professionals including surgeons had COVID-19, and facemask was found to be somewhat protective against COVID-19, but the health professionals’ compliance was highly variable ranging from zero to 100%. In line with other guidelines we continue to recommend facemask use among surgeons to prevent COVID-19.