LAHORE: Chief Executive Officer Punjab Institute of Cardiology, Dr Saqib Shafi, on Tuesday confirmed that several doctors and other medical staffers from the facility had tested positive for the novel coronavirus.
The hospital's chief executive said that over 400 of the facility's staff had been screened for the virus.
The infected include six doctors, 10 nurses, and seven staff members, Dr Shafi said, adding that they exhibited no symptoms of the virus.
Surgeon Prof Aftab Younas, a faculty member of the PIC and the first medic of the hospital to contract the virus, was discharged on Saturday after testing negative, according to The News.
Dr Shafi said that the hospital administration had shut down the operation theatre for four days after Prof Younas had tested positive and that after disinfecting it operations have resumed.
The incidents of doctors, who have been battling on the frontline without guarantee of adequate Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), catching the virus are on the rise.
At least two doctors, one each from Sindh and Gilgit-Baltistan, have lost their lives after contracting coronavirus.
Dr Usama Riaz, from GB, was part of a 10-member team of the doctors tasked with screening patients returning from other towns, particularly those arriving there from Iran via Taftan. He later started providing services to the suspected patients in isolation centres established for them in Gilgit.
Dr Abdul Qadir Soomro, from Sindh, contracted coronavirus while treating his patients in the Gulshan-e-Hadeed locality of Karachi, and when his condition deteriorated, he approached the Indus Hospital in Karachi where he tested positive for the viral ailment and was admitted to the isolation ward.
Meanwhile, the country has reported over 9,500 COVID-19 cases with over 200 deaths.
At the time of this report, Punjab had reported 4,195 cases, Sindh 3,053, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 1,276, Balochistan 465, Islamabad 185, Gilgit-Baltistan 281, and AJK 50.
