Mexico City, Mexico — In only 10 days, the number of COVID-19 infections among Mexican doctors, nurses and hospital personnel shot up by 261 percent.
According to figures released by the General Director of Epidemiology of the Ministry of Health, José Luis Alomía, from April 14 to 24, infections rose from 535 to 1,934 representing 15 percent of total confirmed cases in the country.
Over the weekend, Luis Alomía reported three new outbreaks, one in the General Hospital of Atizapán, another in the General Hospital of the Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS) of the municipality of Tonalá, Chiapas and a third in a hospital in Ocotlán, Jalisco.
Regarding the causes of infections within clinics and hospitals, he says they were due to internal and external causes for lack of sufficient protective medical equipment and lack of proper personnel training, among others.
The official outlined that of those 1,934 infected health workers, 47 percent correspond to doctors, 35 percent to nurses, 15 percent to other employees in the Health sector, 2 percent to laboratory workers and one per hundred to dentists.
The weekend outbreak at the General Hospital of Atizapán confirmed 35 positive cases, of which two were kept hospitalized. In Chiapas, they reported that at least five workers from the General Hospital of the IMSS of the municipality of Tonalá tested positive for COVID-19 and are in home isolation. The Delegation of the Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS) in Chiapas confirmed the outbreak noting that those infected had recent contact with an infected patient.
Seven resident doctors from the municipality of Ocotlán in Jalisco have also tested positive, as confirmed by the Jalisco Health Secretariat, specifying that the contagion “is associated with care provided in medical units.”
