COVID-19 Update: LOINC & SNOMED

Based on recent announcements by the World Health Organization (WHO) ( Novel Coronavirus disease naming ) and the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) ( Coronavirus study group ), Regenstrief and SNOMED International have updated their terms to align with WHO and ICTV’s nomenclature. The WHO has named the syndrome caused by this coronavirus, COVID-19. The ICTV has named the virus “Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2” or SARS-CoV-2.

The LOINC terms for Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2(SARS-CoV-2), previously known as 2019 Novel Coronavirus, are now available on the prerelease page . These terms are expected to be published as official in the next LOINC release (June).

Please note that these terms are ‘Special use’ codes that have been developed in response to an urgent or emergent situation. These codes are based on the most up to date information available at the time of its creation. They have undergone the normal quality assurance terminology process. LOINC supports its use in the special use situation that resulted in its rapid creation.

The SNOMED CT concepts recently added to the international version of SNOMED CT related to the recent outbreak of coronavirus respiratory disease have been revised. The Fully specified names and preferred terms (US-English and GB-English only) have been updated to reflect these new names. As the original names associated with these concepts were known to be temporary and there is no change in the meaning of the concepts, these description changes are considered to be technical corrections and do not require the inactivation and replacement of concepts from the January 2020 release of SNOMED CT.

Note that the following changes do not affect clinical meaning, nor the SNOMED CT concept ID available to users. All changes will be included in the July 31, 2020 SNOMED CT International Edition release .

Should you have any questions, please connect with us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.