NIMS nurse tests +ve for COVID-19 a month after she tested negative

Hyderabad: A nurse working at the Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS) tested positive for Corona virus a month after she had tested negative. In a statement released on 19 April, NIMS said her samples had tested negative at Gandhi Hospital but a month later she tested positive at King Koti Hospital.

According to the hospital records, the nurse had a common cold on 16 March. On the same day, she had assisted a patient who, the doctors suspect, could be the source of her infection. On 17 March, she developed a fever and visited Gandhi Hospital the next day to test for COVID-19. A nasopharyngeal swab test proved she was not infected. However, the Gandhi Hospital physician asked her to quarantine herself for 15 days.

NIM said she applied for leave on 18 March and rejoined her duties on 13 April after the 15-day quarantine. On 14 April, a doctor from NIMS advised her to get tested for COVID-19 at King Koti Hospital. Following the advice, she admitted herself to the hospital. On 17 April her test results came back positive, following which she was shifted to the Gandhi Hospital isolation ward.

NIMS has started the process of contact tracing to find out the people the nurse had met. It said other staff members who came in contact with the COVID-19 patient are also being tested.

Meanwhile, NewsMeter spoke to a few experts on why Corona virus is not detected in the primary test. They said it is possible that the virus could be in the incubation period hence the test results would be negative.

Recently, an 80-year-old had tested negative at Gandhi Hospital but later tested positive.