13 staffers at Bangladesh hospital positive for virus

By SM Najmus Sakib

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AA) - In Bangladesh’s capital at least 13 healthcare workers, including five doctors and five nurses, tested positive for coronavirus after treating carriers of COVID-19, said a hospital official on Friday.

After the staffers at Mitford Hospital in the capital Dhaka tested positive on Thursday, hospital authorities immediately shut down the surgery and post-op wing, according to Brayan Bankim Halder, the hospital’s director.

“The healthcare workers were infected after two patients who got treatment in the hospital’s surgery department hid their identities as virus carriers,” Halder told Anadolu Agency.

“After we sensed the patients were virus carriers, we tested the patients and then our healthcare workers, and 13 of our staff tested positive,” he added, saying that they are providing treatment to the workers and put those they came into contact with into quarantine.

In Bangladesh overall, at least 111 healthcare workers including 65 doctors have so far tested positive for the virus, with one fatality.

Meanwhile, 15 more people died of coronavirus in the last 24 hours, bringing the total death toll to 75, while total infections to date stand at 1,838 with the addition of 66 new cases, Health Minister Zahid Maleque told an online briefing Friday.

He added that only 32% of total confirmed cases are being treated in hospitals while the remaining 68% are getting in-home treatment.

Bangladesh, a densely populated country of 165 million people, has tested nearly 17,000 people for the virus so far.