The Impact of the Novel Corona Virus Disease on Fine Needle Aspiration Cytology Service in a Nigerian Tertiary Hospital

COVID-19 widely believed to have started in Wuhan, China is a highly infectious disease which became a pandemic within few months of its first diagnosis. In the 42 weeks that it has lasted, about 46 million cases were confirmed with about 1.2 million deaths globally out of which 63, 173 and 1, 151 respectively occurred in Nigeria. Globally including our country and hospital, it has put a major strain on healthcare services with major disruptions in provision and uptake of these services and in people's lifestyle. Presently some adverse health consequences of these disruptions are known but many may yet to be discovered. The purpose of this study is to assess the impact of COVID-19 outbreak on the delivery of fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) services by our institution, a university teaching hospital. The hospital offers the full complement of specialist care including fine needle aspiration cytology, FNAC. Oral interviews of practitioners who provide this service were used to gather information for this study. Analysis of findings shows that a combination of patient factors, hospital and healthcare workers' factors and government policy all in response to the pandemic has led to a profound disruption of the fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) service in our hospital. With highly limited testing capacity and lack of PPE in our center, the trend is likely to persist through the pandemic. This can potentially lead to increased diagnosis of cancers with poorer prognosis in the post-COVID-19 era.