Over 220 Medical Workers Under MOH Are Infected With COVID-19
67% of them caught the coronavirus from within the community.
By Sadho Ram — 12 Apr 2020, 12:05 PM
A total of 224 medical workers under the Ministry of Health (MOH) have been infected with the COVID-19 virus as of Saturday, 11 April
Of the 224, 150 of them caught the coronavirus from within the community.
According to Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah, 41 others have links to patients where 29 of them have Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI), nine from patients whose conditions were unknown before they received treatment and three from on the ground screening and other activities.
The remaining 33 cases of infected medical workers are still under investigation.
The infected frontliners, however, weren't handling positive cases
Dr Noor Hisham said that those who are infected did not receive it from COVID-19 patients.
"Our investigations so far showed that none of these infections were caused by the handling of positive cases at COVID-19 wards or the Intensive Care Units (ICU) used to treat COVID-19 patients at the ministry's facilities," he said during his daily press briefing on Saturday.
The Health D-G added that it is the ministry's priority to ensure the safety of the frontliners who are working relentlessly to treat patients
"We will also ensure that the medical personnel treating COVID-19 positive patients don the personal protective equipment (PPE) and those attending to non-COVID-19 patients to use the face mask," he said.
"All medical personnel must also practice preventive measures such as hand washing and at least 1-metre social distancing gap," the Health D-G added, as reported by New Straits Times.
"Besides this, MOH is also strengthening its triaging process, through evaluation and isolation of patients suspected of having COVID-19 symptoms when they are at healthcare facilities."
