Photo from 24.kz
145 new cases of the coronavirus were recorded in Almaty in the 24-hour period leading up to yesterday evening, 127 of them among healthcare workers, the city’s public health department told Fergana’s correspondent.
104 of the 127 infected medical workers are staff at Almaty’s Central Municipal Clinical Hospital.
Infection rates among medical staff in Kazakhstan in general, and Almaty in particular, have been a matter of concern for some time already. A week ago it was reported that, at Almaty’s central hospital alone, 182 staff had already tested positive for the virus. The hospital’s head physician was subsequently fired over the issue.
On 19 April, it was reported that a total of 241 healthcare workers in Almaty had been infected with the virus. Adding yesterday’s increase means that at least 368 of the city’s 693 confirmed cases, or fully 53%, have been recorded among medical professionals. Healthcare workers are of course prioritised for testing, and total tests per capita in Kazakhstan remain slightly (but not much) lower than in low-testing European nations such as the UK. Yet the high infection rates raise questions over whether healthcare workers are being sufficiently well protected. Last week, Almaty’s chief sanitary doctor blamed the high rate of infections among staff at the city’s central hospital in part on “medical workers’ own failure to observe all safety procedures”, leading to sharp protests from hospital staff and calls for the country’s president to investigate.
Yesterday, the health department told Fergana’s correspondent that the central hospital has been divided into clean and infected zones. Medical staff are being regularly tested for the coronavirus and only those whose tests come back negative are allowed to continue work. Those with positive test results are being treated in hospital’s infectious diseases wards. One the city’s smaller hospitals, where 12 employees tested positive yesterday for the virus, has been closed for quarantine.
According to the latest information on 22 April, Kazakhstan has 2,047 confirmed cases of COVID-19. 19 people have died.
