NEW DELHI: While not denying that more than 200 healthcare workers have been infected by Covid-19, the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences said 95 per cent of the staff who tested positive “did not have any evidence of transmission from the patient care activities.”
“Of these, a large majority came from containment zones. Training has been imparted to all cadres of staff in infection control practices in (the) context of Covid. This supplemented the ongoing in-service training programme in infection control,” AIIMS said in rejoinder to a The New Indian Express news report.
The institute also claimed that it had been “issuing appropriate personal protective equipment, including N95 masks, biosafety coveralls etc. in all patient care and support areas to all healthcare workers irrespective of the cadre or mode of engagement.”
Dr Srinivas Rajkumar T, who was the general secretary of the Resident Doctors’ Association, had told this newspaper that poor quality N95 masks and the apathy of the administration were the reasons behind AIIMS employees getting infected.