This emerges from an investigation conducted at Ichilov Hospital following the unusual incident. • It also appeared that the infection occurred as a result of a gas emission caused by a load of respirators.
Defense position at Ichilov Hospital
Photography:
Yossi Zeliger / Archive
A rare case of infection with the Corona ward:
a doctor, brother and sister who work in one of the Ichilov treatment complexes have been infected with the virus.
The investigation of the incident revealed that the two were probably infected with an aerosol (aerosol), which was ejected from a patient's soul device.
This, in light of a load of eight devices that operated in parallel.
Following the incident, Ichilov adopted a new procedure, according to which each ward will have a maximum of six respirators using Hopotram-type respirators.
In addition, the devices will be placed under the air suction means to prevent overload of the aerosol, which contains the corona virus inside the wards.
Archive photo: Shmuel Buharis
Infection of staff members during their work in the corona wards is considered rare.
These are departments that are entered with maximum protection and while monitoring the spread and dressing of staff in accordance with procedures.
Although at any given moment there are hundreds and even thousands of employees in the health system who have been infected or are in isolation, as mentioned, from investigations conducted at the end of the first wave, only a few reports of employees within the infected departments have emerged.
Most of the infections of employees were caused by their family members, at social events of the medical staff or an undiagnosed patient in non-corona wards.
"We have almost no infections within the corona wards, it is an uncommon occurrence. These are wards with an air intake system and negative pressure, wards that enter with 'space suits' in a very controlled way and with observation of the defenses. Therefore, investigate in order to understand what happened this time," explained D. Yael Paran, an expert in infectious diseases and internal medicine, director of the epidemiology unit at Ichilov.
"When we investigated, we found that these were employees who were very strict about procedures outside of work and that none of their family members were infected. It was a sequence of incidents that happened last week and it lit a red light for us. Infecting Corona is something we are very afraid of."
At Ichilov, they checked the integrity of the ventilation systems and adherence to the procedures, but found nothing.
Only later, due to the schedules, did they come to the conclusion that a week before the infection there was a peak occupancy in the same Corona ward.
So eight concurrent patients were resuscitated in a Hopotherm device, a device that compresses air at high pressure to the patient but does not operate invasively.
Such a soul causes the formation of an aerosol, as a result of high-pressure air that penetrates the mucous membranes and causes the virus to enter the space of the room.
"Exactly two weeks ago we reached the peak of congestion in these wards, with 34 patients in the same ward. I toured the ward and saw that the defense and procedures are 'according to the book', but there are more Hopeter devices than in other wards - eight devices at a time," added Dr. Farren.
"We speculate, and there is partial support for this in the literature as well, that when you cross a certain threshold of aerosol formation - it crosses the flow threshold of the ventilation and protection systems. Therefore we set a threshold of 6-5 devices at a time at most."
As stated, the hypothesis in Ichilov also has partial support from the literature.
In addition, another hospital in the northern region reported a similar phenomenon of infecting medical staff in intensive care.
Data from the Ministry of Health showed that as of the weekend there were 1,958 staff members who are verified patients, of whom 218 were doctors, 540 brothers and sisters, 421 administrative and farm workers, 184 auxiliary staff and more.
In addition, there were 2,071 medical staff in isolation following contact with a verified patient.