COVID-19: Delhi cancer hospital shut down after doctor tests positive

The Delhi State Cancer Institute was shut down on Wednesday after a doctor working there tested positive for COVID-19, days after a doctor couple treating patients in community clinics contracted the virus infection.

The doctor at the Delhi government-run cancer institute caught the infection from her brother who returned from the United Kingdom a few days ago. "She visited her brother's house recently. The hospital has been shut for today and being disinfected," Delhi Health Minister Satyender Jain said.

The Out Patient Department (OPD), offices and laboratories of the hospital have been shut and the area has been sanitised. Contact tracing is also on in full swing and those who came in contact with the doctor are being quarantined.

A doctor couple, who were running Delhi government's mohalla clinics, had tested positive for COVID-19 earlier this month. The doctor, working in Maujpur clinic, had first contracted the infection from a woman who had returned from Saudi Arabia after she visited the clinic while his wife, who treats patients in Babarpur clinic, caught COVID-19 from her husband. Their teenaged daughter had also tested positive for COVID-19.

Till Tuesday evening, Delhi had recorded 120 cases of COVID-19 of which two people had died. Twenty-four cases were from the headquarters of the Tablighi Jamaat, where a religious gathering was held in March. While 112 people are still under treatment, including at least one on ventilator, six people have been discharged.