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LONDON : A worldwide COVID-19 study led by UK experts and conducted at Indian hospitals among others round the world has been awarded the ‘Guinness World Records’ title for the world’s largest scientific collaboration, involving over 140,000 patients in 116 countries.
The record for ‘Most authors on one peer-reviewed academic paper’ is now held by the schools of Birmingham and Edinburgh after 15,025 scientists round the globe contributed to the main research into the impact of COVID-19 on surgical patients.
The co-lead author of the study, Indian-origin surgeon Aneel Bhangu from the University of Birmingham, said the study was aimed toward improving our understanding of the deadly virus.
“Being awarded the ‘Guinness World Records’ title for the world’s largest scientific collaboration highlights the size of our global partnership, which aims to contribute to our understanding of COVID-19 and help to save lots of as many lives as possible round the world,” said Dr Bhangu.
It marks the commitment and diligence of thousands of medical colleagues round the world to know the changes that are needed in how surgery must be delivered if we are to beat the virus and reduce its impact on surgical patients,” he said.
Funded by the united kingdom government’s National Institute of Health Research (NIHR), the researchers concluded that patients expecting elective surgery should be treated as a vulnerable group and access COVID-19 vaccines before the overall population – potentially helping to avoid thousands of post-operative deaths linked to the virus.
This was seen as particularly important for low and middle income Countries (LMICs) where access to vaccination remains limited and mitigation measures like nasal swab screening and COVID-free surgical pathways to scale back the danger of virus-related complications aren’t available for several patients.
Overall, the scientists estimated that global prioritisation of pre-operative vaccination for elective patients could prevent a further 58,687 COVID-19-related deaths in one year.
The COVIDSurg Collaborative international team of researchers published its findings within the ‘British Journal of Surgery’ (BJS), Europe’s leading surgical journal, after studying data from 1,667 hospitals in countries including India, the UK, Australia, Brazil, China, the UAE and therefore the US.
In India, the study was conducted across 56 hospitals – among the most important alongside Germany and Italy.
Co-author James Glasbey, a surgical trainee from the University of Birmingham, commented: “Over 15,000 surgeons and anaesthetists from across 116 countries came together to contribute to the present study making it the most important ever scientific collaboration, surpassing even ground-breaking research from the massive Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland.
Every day we hear within the news that waiting lists are growing, and patients are unable to access the surgery that they have . this example sadly is deteriorating in countries everywhere the planet . Policy makers can use the info from this scientific collaboration to securely restart elective surgery.”
Launched in March 2020, the COVIDSurg Collaborative has provided data needed to support changes to surgical delivery within the fastest time-frame ever seen by a surgical research group, Birmingham University said.
Research from this huge study group has also explored the timing of surgery after COVID infection, preoperative isolation, and risks of blood clots, all published within the field-leading journal ‘Anaesthesia’.
According to the experts, during the primary wave of the pandemic, up to 70 per cent of elective surgeries were postponed, leading to an estimated 28 million procedures being delayed or cancelled.
Whilst surgery volumes have began to recover in many countries, ongoing disruption is probably going to continue throughout 2021, particularly within the event of nations experiencing further waves of COVID-19.
Vaccination is additionally likely to decrease post-operative pulmonary complications, reducing medical care use and overall healthcare costs.
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