INTRODUCTION: COVID-19, is a new corona virus of the Beta Coronavirus genus which originated in bats The virus first emerged in China in December 2019 and has rapidly spread since to other areas worldwide The World Health Organization (WHO) has therefore recently declared it as the source of a pandemic The disease caused by the virus manifests in most cases as a lower respiratory tract infection leading to fever, cough and dyspnea, while more severe cases can led to respiratory failure and/or multi organ failure COVID-19 enters the human cell using the ACE2, an enzyme abundant in renal tubular epithelial cells Theoretically, this may be significant in several ways: acute kidney injury (AKI) as well as proteinuria and/or microhematuria could be associated with the penetration of COVID-19 into the cells Moreover, medications based on RAAS inhibition, such and ACE inhibitors and ARBs, upregulate the enzyme ACE2 and could therefore hypothetically explain the high prevalence of hypertension and diabetes reported as previous diagnoses in severe cases In the setting of chronic kidney disease, the risk of infection with COVID-19 is not clear at this time However, hemodialysis patients represent a unique group of patients, mostly elderly and immunocompromised, for whom dialysis is a life-saving treatment which cannot be stopped Hence, the COVID-19 pandemic has presented a complex medical and logistic challenge for the medical staff in hospital and community based dialysis units
[covid-19, the Kidney and Hypertension]