Over 1,000 health workers infected with Omicron

According to him, the public health sector employs more than 14,000 people – which means that over eight percent of them are infected. Syla says their isolation creates “extremely large gaps” in service delivery.

According to the rules issued by the National Institute of Public Health of Kosovo, a person who is positive for coronavirus, can reduce the isolation from ten days to seven, if it is negative twice with PCR or rapid test. Tests should be performed on day 6 and day 7 of diagnosis, with a time difference of 24 hours.

For health workers, according to NIPHK rules, self-isolation can be shortened to five days if the infected person tests negative once by PCR or rapid test. In recent days, high numbers of coronavirus infections have been recorded in Kosovo, unprecedented in any other phase of the pandemic. On Friday, 3,617 new cases and four casualties were confirmed.

The number of active cases has exceeded 31,000. Of these, 157 are hospitalized. In the Infectious Diseases Clinic in Prishtina, there are 78 patients with coronavirus. “Another 20 beds are free [në Infektive]”, Says for Radio Free Europe the director of this clinic, Arben Vishaj.

“If this trend continues, the opening of sports medicine is expected… We have started to appoint infectologists who will be engaged in sports medicine”, warns Vishaj. According to the health authorities, the University Clinical Center of Kosovo and the general hospitals in the municipalities have up to 1,600 beds for all services. Within the UCCK, the capacity reaches up to 700 beds. The member of the presidency of the Union of Nurses of Kosovo, Fitim Havolli, says for Radio Free Europe that the lack of infected nurses overloads the active staff at work.

However, he adds, the situation continues to be “calmer” compared to the earlier stages of the pandemic. In August and September there were days when the number of patients hospitalized with coronavirus exceeded 1,000. At that time, the dominant variant of the coronavirus in Kosovo is believed to have been Delta, which also caused more severe symptoms. Currently, it is believed that the Omicron variant dominates, which, according to health professionals, spreads faster, but is followed by milder symptoms.

The Minister of Health of Kosovo, Rifat Latifi, said on Thursday before the Assembly of Kosovo that hospitals need more staff and to improve the quality of intensive care services, but did not provide details on the steps that can be taken. Latifi said the shortening of the isolation period for health workers infected with the coronavirus was based on United States practice.

The US has halved the isolation time for people infected with coronavirus – but without symptoms – from ten days to five. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the US has said that the five-day isolation should be followed by another five days of masking, when the infected person is close to other people.

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