Introduction
The novel coronavirus infection COVID-19 led to an outbreak at the end
of December 2019 in the Chinese city Wuhan, which quickly spread around
the world. In March 2020, the World Health Organization announced a
pandemic of the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 and pneumonia it causes,
COVID-19. Currently, 40,567,780 cases of coronavirus infection and more
than 1,123,127 deaths have been registered in the world (1). In
Kazakhstan, the first case of coronavirus infection was registered in
March 2020; for October 2020, 109 623 cases of infection, 1768 deaths
were registered (2).
Cohorts of older people and people with weakened immune systems are at
higher risk of contracting coronavirus infection (3). Patients with
hematological diseases, especially malignant neoplasms, are more
susceptible to infection than the general population due to the systemic
immunosuppression administered as part of the treatment of the
underlying disease. Therapy is accompanied by neutropenia, lymphopenia,
and disorders of the mechanisms of innate and adaptive immunity, as well
as the influence of chemotherapy and other methods of treatment.
Consequently, patients with hematologic malignancies may be at increased
risk of contracting COVID-19 and have a worse prognosis. These patients
can also spread the virus for a longer time due to the increased viral
load and delayed elimination of the virus (4).
In world practice, enough experience has not yet been accumulated in the
treatment of hemoblastosis in the context of COVID-19, recommendations
in this direction are based on the opinion and experience of experts and
are constantly updated (5).