In a worrying situation, Hyderabad is seeing many of its frontline workers being infected with coronavirus. On Wednesday, four more post-graduate medical students from Osmania Medical College tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, taking the total of affected medicos from OMC to 16.
Along with this, four doctors and three sanitation workers from the cardiology wing of Nizam's Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS) in Hyderabad also tested positive for coronavirus on Wednesday.
The medical superintendent at NIMS, N Satyanarayana, told The Hindu that they have asked all doctors and staff members to report to them if they have any symptoms of the disease. Satyanarayana also said that they have formed a committee to assess the situation and decide if tests have to be conducted on the doctors and staff members working at NIMS.
The rising number of cases among the medicos have left the junior doctors worried. The Junior Doctors' Association and Resident Doctors' Association on Wednesday met Health Minister Eatala Rajender to express their concerns. The doctors demanded the Minister to provide Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) kits to all the doctors, including those working in outpatient (OP) wards and elective surgery, to avoid exposure of the virus, according to The New Indian Express.
The doctors further requested Minister Eatala to implement the policy of two rotational shifts of quarantine and duty, along with voluntary testing on the doctors on a routine basis.
Meanwhile, Telangana recorded 129 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, and also seven deaths, taking the death toll to 99 in the state. With this, the total number of cases stands at 3,020.
Among the 129 cases, 127 of them were local transmission cases while the other two were ‘migrants’. Out of the 127 cases in the state, 108 of them are from Hyderabad alone. Rangareddy district and Asifabad recorded six cases each. Medchal and Sircilla recorded 2 cases each and Yadadri, Kamareddy and Mahabubnagar recorded one case each.
Appealing the people to report to authorities if they have flu-like symptoms, the Director of Public Health and Family said, “In case of any flu/influenza-like symptoms, such as cough, sore throat, runny nose, fever, difficulty in breathing, body pains and headache, please report to the nearest government health facility and seek the required health services without any delay.”