Coronavirus: Two resident doctors – one nine-months pregnant – at Delhi’s AIIMS test positive
The male doctor belongs to the Physiology Department, and was reportedly admitted to the new private ward for further treatment and testing.
A resident doctor of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi, and his nine-month pregnant wife, also a doctor at the facility, on Thursday tested positive for the novel coronavirus, NDTV reported quoting sources. The AIIMS medical superintendent only confirmed to Scroll.in that the doctor had been infected. But Dr DK Sharma said the doctor was not involved in any patient care services.
The male doctor belongs to the Physiology Department of AIIMS, and was reportedly admitted to the new private ward for further treatment and testing. Meanwhile, the hospital administration undertook rigorous contact tracing after the doctor said he recently attended a farewell ceremony at work. The doctor’s family will also be screened.
This came after three doctors in the national Capital tested positive on Wednesday. While two of them were resident doctors at Safdarjung hospital, the the third one worked at the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel hospital, according to NDTV.
On Wednesday, a Delhi government-run cancer hospital was also shut down after a doctor tested positive for the coronavirus. The Out Patient Department, laboratories and offices of the Delhi State Cancer Institute in Dilshad Garden was shut down and the area was sanitised, government officials said.
Those who came in contact with the doctor were also placed under quarantine. The hospital authorities said the doctor may have contracted Covid-19 from his relatives, who had returned from the United Kingdom.
Last month, a doctor at a North East Delhi mohalla clinic had tested positive for the coronavirus. The doctor tested positive on March 21 after a 38-year-old woman, with a travel history to Saudi Arabia, visited his clinic. The woman had returned to India on March 10. The doctor’s wife and daughter, who also tested positive for Covid-19, have been at an isolation facility at Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital.
The Union health ministry said India has reported 1,965 cases so far, and 50 deaths. In the last 12 hours, as many as 131 fresh cases were reported. Several states are still identifying and tracing people linked to a religious event held at the Nizamuddin Markaz in Delhi last month, after dozens of them began testing positive for Covid-19 in parts of the country in recent days.