30 Health Workers At AIIMS Quarantined As Patient Tests COVID-19 Positive

Around 30 health workers at Delhi's prestigious All-India Institute of Medical Sciences were put under quarantine on Wednesday as a patient admitted in a different ward turned out to be COVID-positive, sources said. So far, none of them are showing any symptoms, sources said.

The 70-year-old had come with neurological complaints and had been admitted at the Cardio-Neuro centre of the hospital. When he developed breathing problems, he was tested for coronavirus and turned out to be positive.

By then, many doctors and nurses had come in contact with him. The patient was admitted at the dedicated COVID-19 wing of the hospital, currently located at the Trauma Centre, and the medical and para-medical staff were asked to stay in quarantine, sources said.

Last week, a resident doctor belonging to the hospital's Physiology Department had tested positive for the virus. His wife, who is pregnant, had also tested positive. Sources said neither of them had any travel history.

Over the last weeks, the medical and non-medical staff at several hospitals in the country got infected and had to be quarantined as a preventive measure after patients who came with other complaints turned out to be coronavirus positive.

Last week, Mumbai's Wockhardt hospital was declared a containment zone by the civic authorities as it had a huge cluster of patients, over 50, from whom at least 40 nurses and three doctors were infected.  The initial patient was a 70-year-old man who was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit. He later tested positive for the virus.

The city's Jaslok Hospital had to shut its Out-Patients Department and stop admission after an asymptomatic patient tested positive for coronavirus. Nearly 100 staff members, including doctors and nurses, had to be isolated and tested for the virus.

In Delhi, a doctor at the Safdarjung hospital contracted the infection from a patient, again highlighting the deplorable lack of adequate protective gear for doctors even at the top hospitals of the national capital.

Besides, 108 staff members of Delhi's Sir Gangaram Hospital and 40 at the Delhi State Cancer Hospital were advised to go on quarantine after patients in one and a doctor in another proved coronavirus-positive.