AIIMS nurse, guard test positive, cancer patients advised quarantine

A security guard deployed at the office of OSD to the Union health minister at AIIMS and a nurse working in Dr B R Ambedkar Institute Rotary Cancer Hospital of the facility have tested positive for COVID-19, sources said on Sunday.

The security guard, posted at the office of officer on special duty (OSD) to Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan located in the teaching block of All India Institute Of Medical Sciences, was tested positive on Saturday, they said.

According to the sources, the entire wing where the OSD office is located is being sanitised and several staffers, including the OSD, is learnt to have been advised self-quarantine. Their samples are also likely to be taken for testing.

Two children of the nurse, who was deployed at the daycare facility of the cancer centre, have also tested positive for COVID-19.

Contact tracing was initiated at the facility on Sunday and all those who have come in contact with the security guard and the nurse have been advised self-quarantine. Further contact tracing is on, they said.

Patients who had come for chemotherapy on Saturday at the daycare facility along with healthcare staff at the hospital who had come in contact with her have been advised self-quarantine.

Besides, at least five more staffers, including two from the record section, a lab attendant and the personal assistant of a faculty at the Cardio-Neuro Centre of AIIMS have also tested positive recently, the sources said.

On Wednesday, a male nurse working in the gastroenterology department of AIIMS was found positive for COVID-19, following which around 40 healthcare staff, including doctors and nurses working in the department, were advised self-quarantine.

However, all the staff who had come in contact with the male nurse have tested negative and the department is fully functional, a doctor said.

Last week, two female nurses, one from the cardiology department and one posted in the Trauma Centre of AIIMS had also tested positive for coronavirus. All those who came in contact with these two nurses have been asked to go into self-quarantine.

The Trauma Centre nurse's child and husband had also tested positive for the infection.