With two more doctors testing positive in Jammu region on Wednesday question marks have been raised on the availability of good quality personal protection equipment (PPE) and standard guidelines being followed while handling suspected covid-19 cases across health care centres in Jammu & Kashmir.
The list of positive cases among doctors has gone up to six in Jammu region only. On the other hand, the total tally of Covid-19 patients in Jammu & Kashmir reached 300 as 22 more people tested positive for coronavirus in the Union territory on Wednesday.
“As many as 22 persons have tested positive today. Out of these, 18 belong to Kashmir and four to Jammu division,” Government spokesman Rohit Kansal tweeted.
He said the total number of cases in Kashmir stood at 246 now while Jammu division had 54 cases so far.
So far, a senior doctor of the Microbiology department, Government Medical College hospital,has recovered and discharged from the hospital while his wife and four others are currently in isolation.
Their contact persons have been quarantined and some of the samples of closed relatives have tested negative.
Meanwhile, among the four fresh cases from Jammu, one of the patient is a close relative of doctor already discharged from the hospital and another one is a PG student of GMC Jammu. He reportedly came in contact with a Covid-19 positive woman, from Tikri area of Udhampur,in GMC and later died on April 9. Two doctors and one of their staff members from a private hospital, too came in contact with a patient, who was suffering from liver ailment and later tested positive and shifted to GMC.
Health care services were also suspended in one of the private hospitals in Jammu. The routine surgeries have been postponed to carry out decontamination and sanitisation work on ground zero and hospital staff has also been quarantined in the hospital premises.
In other related development, a microbiology laboratory at SMGS hospital in Jammu was burnt completely in a mysterious fire late Tuesday night.
The hospital authorities have decided to carry out investigations in the GMC, hospital to avoid any inconvenience to patients admitted in the Gynaecology department.