Five medicos test positive for Covid-19 in Kashmir
Srinagar, May 18: Five medicos tested positive for coronavirus in Kashmir on Sunday, taking the total number of cases in Jammu and Kashmir to 1,188.
The fresh cases include three doctors from ENT department of Shri Maharaja Hari Singh (SMHS) hospital, an orthopedic surgeon from SKIMS Bemina and a dentist of Government Dental College, Srinagar.
“Five doctors tested positive for coronavirus on Sunday. They include three ENT specialists, an orthopedic surgeon and a dentist,” said Dr Naveed Nazir, head of the Pulmonology department at Chest Disease (CD) hospital.
Their samples were tested for coronavirus at microbiology lab of the CD hospital, a doctor said.
“Most of them had come in close contact with a Covid patient of Srinagar who died on Sunday,” he added.
Apart from the orthopedic, he said, the other four doctors had treated the deceased patient.
Notably, a 29-year-old female from Habba Kadal locality of Srinagar died at CD hospital on Sunday. She was the 13th Covid-19 fatality in the state.
She was previously operated in SMHS hospital by ENT surgeons for Ludwig’s Angina (submandibular abscess) and mediastinitis, doctors said.
He said at SMHS hospital, she developed septic shock and was shifted to Surgical Intensive Care Unit.
So far, 13 doctors, three nurses, and five healthcare workers have got infected with the virus in J&K.
Jammu and Kashmir reported 62 more covid-19 cases on Sunday.
Official sources said that 46 of them are from Kashmir and 16 from Jammu division.
Of them, 16 were confirmed at CD hospital’s Covid-19 laboratory out of 642 samples tested. It includes 14 policemen, a pregnant woman, from Anantnag district and one person from Bemina Srinagar, Dr. Saleem, Nodal Officer for COVID-19, said.
Sources at SKIMS here said that six samples–3 from Qazigund and one each from Shopian, Kulgam and Pulwama—returned positive for the virus.
Sources said 24 samples, all from Kulgam, returned positive late night at army’s Udhampur hospital.
