Spain has been one of the most affected countries by the COVID‐19 outbreak. As of April 28, 2020, the number of confirmed cases is 210 773, including 102 548 patients recovered, more than 10 300 admitted to the ICU, and 23 822 deaths, with a global case fatality rate of 11.3%. From the perspective of donation and transplantation, the Spanish system first focused on safety issues, providing recommendations for donor evaluation and testing, and to rule out SARS‐CoV‐2 infection in potential recipients prior to transplantation. Since the country entered into an epidemiological scenario of sustained community transmission and saturation of intensive care, developing donation and transplantation procedures has become highly complex. Since the national state of alarm was declared in Spain on March 13, 2020, the mean number of donors has declined from 7.2 to 1.2 per day, and the mean number of transplants from 16.1 to 2.1 per day. Increased mortality on the waiting list may become a collateral damage of this terrible pandemic.

Patients with bone marrow transplant may present with acute, life-threatening complications which frequently (40% of our cases) require intensive care unit treatment and result in an increased mortality (76% in this series). In an attempt to reach a more objective prognostic assessment, we have analyzed those factors related to the worst outcome in the 25 patients with bone marrow transplant admitted into our intensive care unit. Respiratory failure was the most frequent complication (72%), with an 83% mortality. Graft-versus-host disease and neutropenia led to a greater number of infectious complications with a poor outcome. Failure of more than three organ systems, septic shock and mechanical ventilation were statistically associated with mortality (p less than 0.05), and all patients who required mechanical ventilation for more than seven days or needed intensive therapy for more than 10 days died. The presence of septic shock, multisystem failure and severe neutropenia on admission should be considered as initial indicators of a poor prognosis. More than 7 days of mechanical ventilation and an intensive care unit stay of more than 10 days could be critical points in the reassessment of the intensity and prolongation of treatment.

Background. Spain has been amongst the countries most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has posed significant challenges to the donation and transplantation program. Despite a dramatic decrease of donation and transplantation activities during the critical early weeks of the outbreak, the program has recovered and is learning to cope with COVID-19. Methods. We describe the 4 pillars upon which the Spanish donation and transplantation program has been rebuilt. Results. (1) Standards have been developed and progressively updated for the evaluation and selection of potential donors and recipients with regards to SARS-CoV-2 infection. (2) Spain has been actively generating evidence to assess the validity of our standards and to understand the natural history of the infection in transplant recipients. No case of donor-derived COVID-19 has been reported to date. COVID-19 has been more frequent and has had a more aggressive course in recipients of solid organ transplants than in the general population, but this seems largely explained by the demographics and comorbidity of transplant patients. (3) As a result of this evidence and experience, recommendations have been issued for the management of COVID-19 in solid organ transplant recipients and candidates on the waiting list. (4) Finally, concrete guidance has been issued for centers to manage the donation and transplantation programs in relation to a dynamic and heterogeneous epidemiologic scenario. Conclusions. The Spanish experience confronting the impact of COVID-19 upon donation and transplantation may help serve the needs of a broader community in other countries.

DCD has been successfully developed in Spain following a streamlined process. nRP may become a standard in DCD, although further evidence on the benefits of this technology is eagerly awaited.