At least 25 doctors are among 76 employees of a central government-run premier hospital in Kerala who have been put in home quarantine after one of their colleagues tested positive for the novel coronavirus on return from a trip to Spain. The development has affected the services at Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology (SCTIMST) in Thiruvananthapuram, but the hospital said emergency surgeries were being carried out as planned.
The doctor, who tested positive for COVID-19, returned on March 1 from Spain, which had not been deemed a high-risk country at the time. According to a hospital spokesperson, he had informed the institute's infection control team, who passed on the information to DISHA, the government helpline. Five-day home quarantine was suggested.
The doctor is from the radiology department and does not come in direct contact with patients, the institute said.
Since he had no symptoms he returned to work on March 10. That day he attended to two patients but, the hospital said, it did not involve direct contact.
Several doctors spoke to him while exiting a meeting and they have been sent to home quarantine.
SCTIMST, an institution of national importance under the central government's department of science and technology, has the status of a university and offers research and training facilities. It has three wings: a tertiary referral super specialty hospital, a biomedical technology wing and the Achutha Menon Centre for Health Science Studies.
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