Beijing steps up efforts to curb hospital infections

After a nurse in a Beijing hospital was confirmed to have COVID-19, the capital has further beefed up efforts to avert hospital infections, according to officials and specialists.

Peking University International Hospital is conducting nucleic acid tests on all its staff members since one of its nurses was confirmed to be infected with COVID-19 on Thursday. A total of 2,669 were tested as of Saturday morning, with all receiving negative results, said Song Jinsong, president of PKU Care, at a daily news briefing held in Beijing on Saturday.

The hospital, located in Zhongguancun Life Science Park of Beijing's Changping district, is a nonprofit medical institution of PKU Care.

Song said the nurse had been working in the emergency room of the hospital and received a nucleic acid test on Wednesday. The result was negative. However, she received a message from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention of Changping district on Wednesday evening, informing her that she was a close contact of a confirmed case in Beijing's Haidian district. The nurse was quarantined for observation and was confirmed to be infected on Thursday.

Song said the hospital suspended the operation of its emergency room immediately and quarantined all staff members in the room as close contacts. In the meantime, the hospital strengthened entrance and exit management and disinfected key areas, including the emergency room and the dormitories of the medical staff, to curb the spread within.

Gao Xiaojun, spokesperson of the Beijing Municipal Health Commission, said at the briefing that the commission has requested all hospitals in the city to train medical staff for better self-protection and the prevention of hospital infections.

The commission also requested hospitals to strictly separate fever clinics from other non-fever departments. "All patients with a fever should receive a nucleic acid test," he said.