Need for Publishing COVID-19 Case Reports

COVID 19 pandemic still continues to haunt humanity and the healthcare community is still in want of a potent antiviral drug. Doctors of contemporary medicine are putting in all efforts to combat the menace and AYUSH doctors are also not quite behind. Many Ayurvedic physicians are also offering good patient care and treating COVID 19 cases successfully. In this era of evidence based medicine, publishing such case reports can be powerful documentation to add to the literature and instill confidence in young practitioners.

A Case report is defined as a scientific publication representing the simplest form of clinical research and is the first step within the category of observational and descriptive trials. It is usually a story of a clinical case having some element of uniqueness that needs to be told. It may be a disease presentation (rare disease, new), treatment protocol (new modality, combination) or may even be a response to treatment - positive or negative. These types of studies usually present a thorough and detailed information about the patient with an unusual clinical condition posing a diagnostic dilemma with a novel approach or suggesting an intervention that has not been previously described and published. It is undeniable that case reports have played a key role in the history of medicine. Our current knowledge about many diseases began with such publications.

Publishing case reports will help generate hypotheses for future clinical studies and guide the individualization and personalization of treatments in clinical practice. This can also offer a structure for case-based learning in healthcare education and facilitate the comparison and delivery of healthcare education across cultures. Wellwritten and transparent case reports reveal early signals of potential benefits, harms, and information on the use of resources. They are good sources for conducting clinical research and practice. High-quality case reports are more likely when authors follow reporting guidelines. CARE guidelines for publishing case reports are framed to address inconsistent and incomplete reporting, the likelihood of replication and to increase transparency. CARE checklist has 13 topics addressing 30 points and the patient perspective (topic 12) is of prime importance which should be recorded preferably in the language of the patient. Also, informed consent must be obtained from the patient before submitting the case report for publication.

In the wake of COVID-19, when a lot of Ayurveda practitioners, academicians and researchers are treating the disease successfully, it becomes imminent for publishing COVID-19 case reports. With a high level of professionalism and competency anticipated by the scientific community; each topic of CARE guidelines should be duly attended. This effort surely helps to gather substantial evidence in the AYUSH sciences, and develop a database that can equip us to combat the present pandemic and any more in future.