COVID-19 continues to spread among healthcare workers in public hospitals, partly due to false negatives from a growing patient load, doctors said.

Often, it is hard to pinpoint where or how the workers became infected with the virus raging in the community and daily infections surpassing 7,000 in recent days.

Data from the Health Ministry showed 8,415 healthcare workers were infected by Covid-19 as of June 20, almost double the 4,756 cases reported among healthcare workers in February.

Speaking to The Malaysian Insight on condition of anonymity, a doctor at a public hospital said false-negative results from Covid-19 tests are a growing concern.

“Prior to admission, every patients gets an RTK-antigen Covid-19 test.

“But nowadays, the rate of false negatives is high (because of increased patient load). Some turn out to be positive later, and the spread starts there,” the doctor said.

“The rate of false negatives may not be very high but with increasing patient load, the rate can statistically be higher,” he said.

Some patients also do not tell the truth during the screening process, adding to the health workers’ risk of infection, he said.

“Some of the patients from a Covid-19 red zone or even someone who has symptoms are not transparent when they are screened.

The RTK-antigen test is used to speed up the admission process. The doctor said the hospitals did not have the resources to provide the more accurate reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests for all incoming patients.

“RT-PCR is the only way out but we don’t have enough resources and manpower for that.

“If we ask for a RT-PCR test for everyone, the laboratory will receive thousands more samples per day and the turnover rate of 24 hours might stretch to 48 hours or more, ‘’ he said.

Nurses were most at risk of infection, the data showed. Since the start of the pandemic, 3,014 nurses have caught the virus, nearly three times the number of infected doctors. The second most at risk group of healthcare workers are medical officers at 1,092 cases, followed by healthcare assistants (737), assistant medical officers (665) and graduate medical officers (466).

Hospitals with the most infected healthcare workers are Kuala Lumpur Hospital (HKL) with 437 cases, followed by Serdang Hospital (381) and Tengku Ampuan Rahimah Hospital (348).

As for the source of infections, the data showed that 4,469 of healthcare workers were infected via community transmission, 2,393 caught the virus from colleagues, 972 from patients and 205 from an unknown source.

The doctor said cross-infections in hospitals were also increasing due to a spike in community transmissions, adding that the spread occurred in non-Covid-19 wards too.

He said cross-infections were not only affecting healthcare workers but patients.

“A patient can bring the virus into the hospital or it can even spread through healthcare workers.

“Just imagine, a chronic patient who has been in the hospital for three months can contract Covid-19.

“Where did he get it from? Must be from the nurses, doctors, cleaners or other patients he has been exposed to,” he said.

Another medical worker at a public hospital said many healthcare employees were vulnerable to community transmission.

He said his colleague, who is pregnant, recently tested positive despite strictly adhering to the SOP at the workplace, including always wearing personal protective equipment when treating patients.

“We were all exposed to this colleague of mine who tested positive.

“She used full protective equipment such mask, face shield and more while at work at the hospital but still contracted Covid-19. So it was probably community transmission.

“We don’t know the source of her infection,” the worker said.

Two weeks ago, director-general of health Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah expressed concern over the rise in sporadic infections since the start of the year.

He said the bulk of the infections were in the Klang.

According to Noor Hisham, from January 1 to June 19, Malaysia recorded 578,105 Covid-19 cases, 398,846, or 69%, of them sporadic infections.

Selangor accounted for 151,725 of the infections (38%), followed by Kuala Lumpur, which logged 44,517 cases (11.2%) and Sarawak contributed 40,889 cases (10.3%). – July 8, 2021.