Health expert: 16% of Covid-19 cases in Romania among health workers, 'pretty high'

Of the total Covid-19 cases in Romania, 16% have been recorded among health workers, doctor Alexandru Rafila, the president of the Romanian Microbiology Society, said. He called the rate “pretty high” and said it was due to the Suceava hotspot and two-three other places.

“We are a bit above the usual statistics, namely we have around 16% of the cases among health workers, which is pretty high. If we took out of this equation the Suceava situation and two- three other places with an important number of cases, the situation would not be that worrying; the rest of the cases are sporadic and do not endanger the functioning of the medical units,” he explained in an interview at Digi24, quoted by daily Adevarul.

Sooner or later, most hospitals in the country will report Covid-19 cases among health workers, Rafila said. Testing health workers with symptoms is already a rule and is meant to identify the Covid-19 cases and prevent the spread of the infection among colleagues or patients, he added.

Rafila mentioned a proposal to have a “group of labs, distributed in a balanced manner at a national level.” They would be around 30 labs, with a capacity of 10,000 tests. “At a national level, we need to have this capacity where we can have the guarantee of quality and of the fact that the people working there are very well trained and they can work anytime, and, if possible, in two shifts, so we can answer the number of requests,” he explained.

At the same time, another group of labs would deal with local issues, he said.

Rafila also said the Health Ministry would expand the list of people that would be tested so as to respond to a second phase.

“We were initially in a phase where we tried to prevent the infection from arriving into the country. Now we are in the phase of limiting the transmission, of serious cases and deaths; we are trying to limit the impact on the categories at risk, trace the contact people and limit the spread as much as we can,” he said.

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