Taiwan on Tuesday announced two imported Coronavirus cases and two locally transmitted cases, including a Taiwanese doctor treating a COVID-19 patient.
As at Tuesday, Taiwan, an island of 23.6 million people, had reported just 838 infections, including 741 imported cases, with seven virus-related deaths. Currently, 101 COVID-19 patients are receiving medical treatment in hospitals in Taiwan.
Health and Welfare Minister Chen Shih-chung told a news conference that the ill doctor, who works in a hospital in northern Taiwan, last week treated a seriously ill COVID-19 patient in a negative pressure isolation ward.
Meanwhile, the doctor’s girlfriend, who is a close contact, also tested positive for novel coronavirus.
Chen said that the female patient, in her 20s, is a nurse at the same hospital but she had never been assigned to take care of any COVID-19 patient.
According to Chen, there is no cluster of infections in the hospital as more than 460 people, including health-care staff members, patients and family members, have all tested negative for the coronavirus.
Dozens of staff members in the hospital had been conducting self-isolation.
The doctor turned patient, in his 30s, is the first doctor in Taiwan who has contracted the coronavirus during treatment, according to the Central Epidemic Command Centre (CECC).
Previously, in February, three nurses and a cleaner in a hospital contracted the virus after contacting a patient without symptoms of COVID-19.
The two new imported cases include a Taiwanese woman, in her 60s, returning from the U.S. and a British businessman in his 30s.
dpa/NAN
