Thiruvananthapuram: The health sector in Kerala is reeling under the COVID-19 crisis as healthcare personnel, including doctors, are being quarantined.
Several doctors and nurses in the state also tested positive for COVID-19 on Tuesday.
Two doctors and a staff nurse tested positive at the Kannur Government Medical College Hospital on Tuesday. The two doctors had been under treatment for three days. However, they reportedly did not contract the disease from the COVID ward.
After the infection was confirmed in a patient at the medicine ward of the Kozhikode Medical College Hospital, nine doctors have been quarantined.
A total of 16 doctors, 17 nurse staff and two nursing assistants are under quarantine at the Medical College Hospital. Patients, who have been discharged from the hospital, are instructed to be in home quarantine.
Two doctors of a private hospital in Aluva were among the eight hospital staff who tested positive for the disease in Ernakulam district on Tuesday. Eighteen nuns of the Sisters of the Destitute (SD)’s provincial house at Keezhamadu also tested positive.
The government ayurveda dispensary at Devikulam in Munnar was shut down after the disease was confirmed in a relative of one of the staff. Doctors and other staff have been quarantined.
Fish markets shut in Malappuram
Twenty-nine of the 61 people, who tested positive in Malappuram on Tuesday, had been infected through contact transmission. The source of infection is not known in 18 people. Kondotty municipality in Malappuram district has been declared as a containment zone. Fish markets in Nilambur, Manjeri and Malappuram have been shut. The Tirur gulf market was also shut.
Pulamanthol bridge and Thiruvegapura bridge along the Palakkad-Malappuram border were closed by the police.
