Covid-19 is the 21st century's the third outbreak coronavirus, after SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV [1]. Healthcare workers are exposed to extreme psychological distress [2–4]. In addition to an increased risk of infection, medical staff working directly with patients diagnosed with Covid-19 face multiple challenges and stresses which can also increase the risk of developing mental health symptoms. Despite initial evidence of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the mental health of healthcare workers, there is insufficient data on how healthcare workers are being affected in Europe, and specifically in limited resource settings such as Kosovo. Furthermore, healthcare workers are the key building block of any health system, and vital to effective management of any public health emergency. The pandemic caught Kosovo off guard, at a time when its health system was still dealing with the legacy of its almost total collapse during the 1998‐9 war, including significant gaps in healthcare provision and chronic underfunding of institutions. Kosovo health institutions have taken measures to reduce contact and risk of disease transmission among health professionals in health facilities and, in turn, to reduce expenditure on personal protective equipment, given shortages of PPE during March and early April. In Kosovo, the first Covid-19 cases were confirmed on 13 March 2020, making Kosovo (along with Montenegro) one of the last countries in the region, and Europe as a whole, to be affected by the pandemic. By 8 May 2020, in Kosovo there were 862 confirmed cases of Covid-19, 28 deaths, 622 recovered patients, and 9557 people had been tested for the disease [5].

We designed a rapid online survey to examine the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the mental health status of healthcare professionals in public health facilities in Kosovo, using 14-item Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) questionnaire [6]. Data were collected from 4 April 2020 (when there were 140 Covid-19 cases reported by NIPH) to 15 April 2020 (when there were 423 Covid-19 cases reported by NIPH). The study protocol was approved by the ethical commission of Heimerer College. Five hundred and ninety-two (592) healthcare workers completed the questionnaire, 363 (61.3%) were female whereas 229 (38.7%) male. Majority of respondents were nurses (51.4%), median age was 39 (IQR, 32–46) years, and median clinical working experience was 12