8 doctors tested positive with COVID-19

One of the infectious diseases specialist of St. Paul's Hospital shared how they discovered that 8 of their doctors are positive with coronavirus.

Photo credit: SPHI

On friday, one of the their patient were recommended to an urgent surgery. As a hospital protocol before performing a surgery, patients must undergo rapid testing first according to Dr. Ella Mae Divinagracia.

“Since the patient was scheduled ASAP, I requested for rapid testing which was available to us so we might as well utilize it. It turned out that the patient was positive for (IGM) so because of that, we have to do testing for all our doctors who were in close contact with the patient," Dr. Divinagracia said.

IGM is usually the first antibody produced by the immune system when a virus attacks. A positive IGM test indicates that you may have been infected and that your immune system has started responding to the virus. When IGM is detected you may still be infected, or you may have recently recovered from a COVID-19 infection.

The patient and all the doctors who have come in contact immediately undergone RT-PCR test and it turned out that 8 of the doctors were infected. According to Dr. Divinagracia, she is still wondering why the patient tested negative on the first RT-PRC test. So, they repeated the test to validate.

Now the hospital is strictly investigating on where might the physicians came in contact with the virus.

“This patient doesn’t have contact with the index case the medical residents are assigned to specific areas in the hospital so automatically all these identified patients or residents were placed in a quarantine facility in the hospital while awaiting for the result," paliwanag ni Divinagravia.

The 8 doctors are all asymptomatic and they consider the incident as a blessing, for without the patient they won't know that the doctors were infected with Covid 19.