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Nineteen Health Ministry employees among 422 COVID cases

Published:Thursday | April 30, 2020 | 12:00 AM
In this April 17 photo, Health Minister Dr Christopher Tufton enters his office building while persons waited for testing and interviews at the RKA Building after the first staff member was tested positive for COVID-19.

The Health Ministry is reporting that 19 of its employees have now tested positive for the coronavirus.

Up to yesterday, only seven had tested positive.

However, in a release this evening, the Health Ministry said following the sampling and testing of over 300 employees from its New Kingston offices, the tally has increased to 19.

Recently, the ministry temporarily closed its offices for deep cleaning and sanitisation and it says new measures will now be implemented.

These include the scheduling of employees to reduce the number of persons in the offices at a time and work-from-home protocols for more of the technical staff.

In the meantime, the ministry said contact tracing has been done for the employees tested positive and workers at risk for exposure tested and placed in quarantine.

The ministry also said directly affected employees have been provided with counselling and care packages. 

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