More than 19,000 doctors and other medical personnel on the frontlines of tackling the COVID-19 outbreak in Spain have contracted the coronavirus, Maria Jose Sierra from the Spanish Health Ministry's emergencies coordination unit said on Monday
MADRID (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 06th April, 2020) More than 19,000 doctors and other medical personnel on the frontlines of tackling the COVID-19 outbreak in Spain have contracted the coronavirus, Maria Jose Sierra from the Spanish Health Ministry's emergencies coordination unit said on Monday.
"So far we know about 19,400 medical personnel, and we continue collecting information in autonomous communities, both about their condition and about the number of people who have recovered. According to our data, about 20 percent of them have already been discharged from hospital and about 10 percent remain hospitalized, with the majority of them getting treatment at home," Sierra said at a briefing.
According to El Pais daily, 13 of the infected medical personnel have died, among them 11 doctors and two nurses.
Over the past two days, the Spanish Health Ministry has distributed one million rapid tests across the country's autonomous regions, pursuing to detect as many asymptomatic cases as possible before the infection progresses into disease.
Spain has been one of the most affected European countries, with over 81,000 active COVID-19 cases as of Monday. The death toll has topped 13,000. At the same time, for several days already the country saw the spread of the infection slow down.
