More doctors catching Coronavirus

Hyderabad: With a daily rise in Covid-19 cases and patients seeking medical aid turning up at hospitals, more and more doctors are catching the Coronavirus.

However, with the possibility of a sharp rise in the number of doctors and other healthcare workers getting infected with Covid in the days to come, some government medical colleges and hospitals are learnt to have begun issuing informal orders on shorter quarantine periods.

Meanwhile, a covid-19 outbreak at the Institute of Mental Health at Erragadda saw at least nine doctors, and as many as 57 patients at the hospital being found positive for the disease on Monday. Health officials said it was too early to find out if all the 57 in-patients at the Institute caught Covid from the doctors or the other way round.

Sources said that doctors at some government hospitals are being asked to stay in isolation just for three days if they catch Covid and are asymptomatic, and if suffering from some symptoms, then for five days. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare had said that anyone testing positive for Covid should isolate themselves for at least 7 days with three successive days of no fever after testing positive.

It is learnt that just between Gandhi Hospital, Osmania General Hospital, Niloufer Hospital for children, the Institute of Mental Health in the city, and the MGM Hospital in Warangal, some 220 doctors, and post-graduate medical students cutting across various departments, in addition to faculty have been infected with Covid-19 in the past few days.