Immediate impact of COVID-19 on eye banking in India

In India, COVID-19 infected more than 10 million and caused more than 148,000 fatalities during 2020. Due to "lockdown" eye banks were shuttered in March, 2020 and reopened for operations in the month of May, 2020. This study assesses the immediate impact of the pandemic on eye banking and cornea transplantation in India.

Data was gathered through an online survey of the eye banks and cornea surgeons in India. The questionnaire collected information on the vital statistics of eye bank operations and cornea transplants for the period from March to June for the years 2019 and 2020.

47 eye banks responded to the survey. Collectively in the March-May 2020 period, corneas collected and transplanted declined by 78.27% and 79.14%, respectively, compared to the same period of 2019. In June 2020, the first full month after operations restarted, the collection and transplants were respectively, 82.10% and 81.82%, lower than June, 2019. Long-term glycerine preservation of corneas in the period from March to June 2020 increased by 124.5% compared to same period in 2019, but overall only 5.26% of the corneas recovered were preserved in this way. 44.44% of the eye banks collected corneas only from donors with negative COVID-19 diagnosis. 36.11% of the respondents rejected all suspicious cases, such as donors with respiratory pathologies, and 2.78% of the respondents accepted donations from medico legal cases only. 19.44% of the responding eye banks did SARS-CoV-2 nasal swab test for the deceased donor. 79.5% of the eye banks reported that staff were willing to work during the pandemic, and 82.05% eye banks gave special training to staff before restarting services.

Due to the steep decline in collections and transplants, 2020 can be termed as a lost year in Indian eye banking. Attention to Hospital Cornea Recovery Programs, continuous situation monitoring, and ongoing staff training programs are recommended.