TN doctor who treated COVID-19 patient tests positive for coronavirus

In a first, a 29-year-old doctor at Southern Railways, who treated a 63-year-old patient before he was tested positive for COVID-19, was confirmed to have been infected by the coronavirus on Sunday (March 29), said Tamil Nadu health secretary Beela Rajesh.

Speaking to the reporters, Beela Rajesh said eight new patients tested positive for COVID-19 on Sunday and confirmed that all eight patients had been in touch with the Thai nationals who tested positive earlier for COVID-19. Of those eight people, four were from Coimbatore and belong to the same family, while the other four are from Erode.

The four people from Coimbatore are a 29-year-old woman, her 10-month-old boy baby, her 58-year-old mother, and 52-year-old house maid. Sources in health department confirmed that the 29-year-old female doctor was the duty doctor at Erode Railway Hospital when the 62-year-old man, who was later tested positive for the virus, visited the Erode Railway Hospital on March 18.

“After treating him for symptoms of fever, she had advised the man to get treatment at the Government Hospital in Erode, since the Railways hospital was not meant for general public. Later, she joined the Podanur Railway Hospital in Coimbatore for duty on March 23,” said a health official in Coimbatore.

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On March 23, she was suffering from fever and had treated herself. “But, only while tracing the contacts of the 63-year-old man, who tested positive for COVID-19 in the meantime, health officials came to know that the doctor was also one of the contacts and immediately took her along with her family members to the isolation ward at ESIC hospital in Coimbatore,” sources said.

The Railway hospital at Podanur had to be shut and the city municipal corporation put up a notice board asking people who visited the hospital between March 23 and March 26 to isolate themselves for 14 days. The local body officials also asked people showing symptoms of fever, dry cough, and other respiratory issues to immediately report to the Government Hospital.

The incident of a doctor getting infected through a patient has come at a time when doctors across the country have been demanding proper protective equipment, including face masks, gloves, and many more, to safeguard themselves.