Two doctors and a laboratory technician involved in COVID-19 testing were on Tuesday detected positive for the dreaded virus here. One of the doctors is attached to the privately owned Charnock Hospital, which has been temporarily shut down for fumigation after the death of a coronavirus patient and the detection of five positive cases.
The other medic is an orthopaedic attached to a nursing home in south Kolkata. He was admitted to the nursing home recently after falling sick. As he developed symptoms of Covid-19, his swab samples were sent to the Tata Medical Centre for testing. On Tuesday night, the report came as positive. He has now been shifted to a private hospital earmarked for Covid-19 patients.
The state health department has decided to make the nursing home germ free. The authorities are making a list of doctors, nurses and health workers who have come in contact with the orthopaedic. The list would be handed over to the healh department, which would send them to quarantine.
A lab technician in the National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases, which has been conducting the bulk of the tests for the virus, has also tested positive for COVID-19.
Meanwhile, the father of an MP from West Bengal is also learnt to have been detected with coronavirus, though the health department has not confirmed it yet.