2025-05-25-世界卫生组织-INTERNATIONAL_GUIDELINES_FOR_CERTIFICATION_AND_CLASSIFICATION_CODING_OF_COVID-19_AS_CAUSE_OF_DEATH_-_UPDATE_18页_696kb

1. Purpose

This document outlines guidelines for uniformly recording and classifying deaths related to COVID-19 using ICD codes. The goal is to accurately identify and report all COVID-19 deaths during surveillance, ensuring consistency in death certification and coding.

2. Definition

A death due to COVID-19 is defined as a death resulting from a clinically compatible illness in a probable or confirmed COVID-19 case, without a period of recovery between the illness and death. It excludes deaths with a clear alternative cause.

3. Guidelines for Certification

• Record COVID-19 on the medical certificate of cause of death if it caused, contributed to, or was believed to cause death; do not record if it did not impact mortality.
• Use official terminology "COVID-19" to avoid ambiguity.
• Specify the causal chain of events and report comorbidities in Part 2 of the certificate if COVID-19 did not directly cause death.
• Provide examples for various scenarios, including comorbidities like chronic conditions, pregnancy complications, HIV, accidents, and malignancies.

4. Guidelines for Coding

• Use specific ICD codes for COVID-19 (e.g., U07.x in ICD-10 for confirmed cases, RA01.x in ICD-11), including codes for related conditions like multisystem inflammatory syndrome or vaccination needs.
• Exclude codes unsuitable for primary mortality tabulation or underlying cause coding, such as U08.x or U09.x.
• Follow ICD rules for selecting the underlying cause, with steps handling sequencing rules in chains of events; code COVID-19 if it contributed to death.
• Offer coding examples for scenarios involving comorbidities and related deaths.

5. Annex

Includes terms commonly used by certifiers that can be coded as COVID-19 synonyms, such as "COVID Positive" or "Sars-Cov-2 Infection".