Hospital closes temporarily over new infection

Peking University International Hospital in Beijing's Changping district was shut down temporarily after discovering a nurse infected with the coronavirus on Thursday, according to a news release from the municipal government on Friday.

The infected nurse had been in close contact with a patient in Haidian district who was confirmed with the infection on Sunday. The nurse had been on duty until being identified as a close contact, said Wu Bin, deputy head of Changping district.

The hospital has been disinfected, and its outpatient and emergency treatment centers have been suspended, Wu said.

Beijing reported 25 new confirmed cases of the coronavirus, two suspected cases and two asymptomatic infections on Thursday.

Since the cluster outbreak on June 11 that was related to the Xinfadi agricultural wholesale market in Fengtai district, a major supplier of food to Beijing, 183 confirmed cases have been reported in the city, said Xu Hejian, spokesman for the municipal government, on Friday.

Twenty-one of the 25 newly confirmed cases were linked to Xinfadi; eight of the people worked in the same restaurant, which is located near the seafood section of Xinfadi market, said Pang Xinghuo, deputy head of the Beijing Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

As of Thursday, Beijing Ditan Hospital had received 183 confirmed cases and 13 people who were infected but showed no symptoms since the outbreak.

The hospital has increased the strength of its intensive care team and included experts who fought the epidemic in Wuhan, Hubei province, earlier this year, said Wu Guo'an, deputy director of the hospital.

A total of 102 medical workers, including 26 doctors, 62 nurses, eight inspectors and six radiologists, have been transferred from 18 municipal hospitals to support medical treatments.

Also, the headquarters of Ditan Hospital has added beds, so it now has 1,070, Wu said.

The Chinese CDC and the CDC of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shandong and Henan provinces each sent 10 people to assist in the epidemiological investigation and analysis, Pang said.