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சுருக்கம்

The Exposure Risk of Covid-19: HCWs are Threat to their Families; the Time to Take Action is Now

Hamzullah Khan

The recent emergence of a new respiratory disease called COVID-19 from a metropolitan city of the Hubei Province of China, called Wuhan, in December 2019, demonstrated its epidemic potential with a rapid spread of this virus across the globe in just two months period. This highlights the higher rate of transmissibility of this virus and further its higher morbidity and mortality, especially in aged population or people with co-morbidities and/or immune gap.

COVID-19 is a highly contagious respiratory disease that is caused by novel corona virus. Its main clinical symptoms are fever, dry cough, fatigue, myalgia and dyspnea. In Pakistan the literature so for covering the prevalence and incidence is deficient. In Pakistan the so for (24th July 2020) reported data from government sources declares 270,400 confirmed cases with 5763 deaths. 219783 cases are recovered so for and 1316 cases are under treatment in high dependency units countrywide. Sindh is the province with highest number of corona cases crossing 115883.

The early available information’s so for concluded that Health Care workers (HCW) are at increased risk of contracting the corona infection ranging from 15-18% and in some cases up to 20%. Major contributing factors are inadequate availability of the Personal Protective Equipment’s (PPE), uncertain diagnosis, non-availability of the diagnostic facilities in all health care centers and related psychological stress while working in COVID-19 treatment facilities.

Another study concluded that the exposure risk of health care workers was higher than general population and they experienced a risk of transmission of the disease to their families, though the rate of transmission of the disease was lower.

In present study we analyzed the data of COVID-19 surveillance system of our teaching hospital to see the prevalence of infection (COVID-19) in HCWs and contribution of family contacts in transmission of this deadly disease.