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COVID-19 in medical personnel: observation from Thailand

Beuy Joob, Viroj Wiwanitkit, Honorary professor, visiting professor

PII: S0195-6701(20)30090-6
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhin.2020.02.016
Reference: YJHIN 5921

To appear in: Journal of Hospital Infection

Received Date: 22 February 2020

Accepted Date: 23 February 2020

Please cite this article as: Joob B, Wiwanitkit V, COVID-19 in medical personnel: observation from
Thailand, Journal of Hospital Infection, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhin.2020.02.016.

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© 2020 The Healthcare Infection Society. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
COVID-19 in medical personnel: observation from Thailand

Beuy Joob1; Viroj Wiwanitkit2

1. Sanitation 1 Medical Academic Center, Bangkok Thailand

2. Honorary professor, Dr DY Patil University, Pune, India; visiting professor, Hainan

Medical University, Haikou, China

Correspondence

Beuy Joob

Sanitation 1 Medical Academic Center, Bangkok Thailand

Email: beuyjoob@hotmail.com

Sir,

COVID-19 is a new emerging coronavirus infection that has now spread to several countries
[1]. Thailand is an Indochina country with many imported cases of this new disease [2]. An
important consideration is the hospital infection of this new disease. Healthcare workers
(HCWs) are at particular risk of infection during the current epidemic. Here we described
experience of COVID-19 amongst HCWs in Thailand.

At the time of writing (February 21th, 2020), there were 35 patients confirmed COVID-19
cases in Thailand, one of which is a HCW. The HCW is a nurse attendant and became
infected during routine medical work in a Thai hospital. The HCW had a contact with another
COVID-19 patient who had been given a diagnosis of dengue at the time when the HCW had
contact. Since dengue is not a respiratory infection, no respiratory infection control measures
were in place for thi patient. However, the hospitalized patient with dengue later received an
additional diagnosis of COVID-19.

This experience shows that respiratory infection control has to be considered for any patient
with a possible infection, regardless of whether they have overt respiratory symptoms. Indeed
, it is now well known that not all COVID-19 patients have fever or respiratory symptoms at
the time of presentation [3]. Nevertheless, COVID-19 might be easily missed in tropical
countries, either because it occurs in conjunction with a common infectious disease (such as
dengue), or where COVID-19 infection is misdiagnosed as another more common infection.

Conflict of interest

None
References

1. 1.Hsia W. Emerging new coronavirus infection in Wuhan, China: Situation in early

2020. Case Study Case Rep 2020; 10(1): 8-9.
2. Sookaromdee P, Wiwanitkit V. Imported cases of 2019-novel coronavirus (2019-
nCoV) infections in Thailand: Mathematical modelling of the outbreak. Asian Pac J
Trop Med 2020;13:139-4
3. Huang C, Wang Y, Li X, Ren L, Zhao J, Hu Y, et al. Clinical features of patients
infected with 2019 novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China. Lancet. 2020 Feb
15;395(10223):497-506. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30183-5.