Crohn’s and Colitis Canada’s 2021 Impact of COVID-19 and Inflammatory Bowel Disease in Canada: Executive Summary

Abstract

Persons with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) make up more than 0.75% of the Canadian population in 2021. Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, individuals with IBD, particularly those on immunosuppressive therapies, were concerned that their health status may place them at higher risk of contracting COVID-19 or experiencing more severe disease course if infected with SARS-CoV-2. In response, Crohn’s and Colitis Canada developed the COVID-19 and IBD Taskforce in March 2020 to rapidly synthesize the evolving knowledge of COVID-19 as relevant to Canadians with IBD. The Taskforce communicated expert information directly to the Canadian IBD community through online tools and a webinar series. In order to understand the full impact of COVID-19 on the IBD community, Crohn’s and Colitis Canada commissioned a policy report that was informed through a systematic literature review and synthesized across working groups along the following domains: Epidemiology, Children and Expectant Mothers with IBD, Seniors with IBD, Mental Health, Risk Factors and Medications, Vaccines, and Healthcare Delivery during the Pandemic and the Future Model of IBD Care. This report from Canadian physicians, researchers, and IBD community representatives highlights the physical, mental, and health systems impact of COVID-19 on the entire spectrum of the IBD community, including children, adolescents, adults, seniors, and pregnant people with IBD. This executive summary provides an overview of the crucial information from each of the chapters of the policy report, supplemented with additional information made available through Crohn’s and Colitis Canada’s webinar-based knowledge translation platform.

The 2023 Impact of Inflammatory Bowel Disease in Canada: Executive Summary

“…The COVID-19 literature search included studies published in 2021 or later, which updated the 2021 Impact of COVID-19 and IBD in Canada report. These dates were chosen to minimize overlap in identified studies with previous iterations of this impact report ( 1 , 4 ). Review topics, search terms, databases, and the exact date of the literature search for each review are specified in Supplementary Material 1 .…”

A systematic review of current status and challenges of vaccinating children against SARS-CoV-2

“…Other studies have shown that full vaccination of two or three doses of RNA vaccine can significantly increase the level of neutralizing antibodies in the recipients, preventing the occurrence of a global pandemic amid the frequent emergence of new variants of SARS-CoV-2 both in adults and children [45] , [48] , [108] , [109] , [110] , [111] , [112] , [113] . Robust clinical data also confirmed that the COVID-19 vaccine is safe in children with specific diseases, including congenital immunodeficiency, congenital heart disease, pediatric inflammatory bowel disease and allergy [114] , [115] , [116] , [117] , [118] , [119] , [120] , [121] , [122] . Given that some parents are still hesitant about vaccine safety, reducing the single-dose volume of vaccines for children and extending the vaccination interval has been proven to reduce the occurrence of adverse events, which is expected to become the vaccination strategy for children in the future [111] , [123] , [124] .…”

Questionnaire-Based Study of 81 Patients in Poland to Evaluate the Course of Inflammatory Bowel Disease and the Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Quality of Life and Mental State from February to June 2021

“…They also indicated problems with postponed or rescheduled hospitalizations. Another published study also showed a significant decrease in hospitalizations in patients with IBD, mainly during the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, primarily due to the heavy burden of patients with COVID-19 filling hospital beds [ 15 ]. It is remarkable that the incidence of hospitalization of patients with UC and CD has decreased considerably in the last decade, especially in patients under 40 years of age; therefore, it is not possible to say whether our results prove the impact of the pandemic on this factor [ 16 ].…”