COVID Rate Among Healthcare Workers
The Infection rate of corona in the midst of healthcare professionals in three states Telangana, Maharashtra, and Delhi is twofold or more than the pace in common populace, as per the data shared by the union health ministry.
The positivity rate reveals the fraction of people who are declared positive among those who are tested for COVID.
India’s positivity rate in recent times stands at about 7 percent. The nation has increased testing and has been able to accomplish over one million tests for the past 3 days one after the other.
In contrast, the positivity rate among healthcare employees doctors, nurses, the paramedical staff is the highest in Telangana where 18 percent of those examined were found to be infected. This is followed by Maharashtra state with 16 percent and Delhi with 12%.
The union health ministry has contacted the six states where the positive cases among healthcare staff are more. The other states with high infection rates among healthcare workers comprise – Karnataka where 13 percent of those people tested are found to be positive, Puducherry with 12%, and Punjab with 11 percent as per the data shared.
They have been closely monitoring the positivity rate amongst the health care workers in the country. And said the healthcare workers are a valuable resource and there was a need to protect them from the corona infection. They have conveyed this to the attention of these states and union territories through the ministry of home affairs, said union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan in the press meet recently.
He listed 3 causes for higher positivity rate among medical workers they being set of rules for hospital infection control not being followed, PPE not being used correctly, and lack of suppression procedures in their residential areas.
The high infection rate among healthcare professionals creates a question, how are they getting virus infected? Is that from the hospital? This could be one reason. There is a typical etiquette for hospital infection control. They have to check if that is being pursued, if not they need to obey that. Then, they need to identify if adequate care is being taken by the healthcare staff, that is, proper usage of the PPE kits.
They have also given a Standard Operating Procedure for that. They have suggested a buddy system where there is a group of two nurses or doctors with one supervising that the other has appropriately donned or doffed the PPE. Bhushan said to the reporters.
He also told that if the healthcare staff is getting infected from their area of residence, then suitable containment actions would be needed.
If the healthcare workers are getting COVID-19 positive from their localities, then the respective government should decide if these areas have been contained or not and proper measures should be taken, he mentioned.
