The condition of a nursing sister being treated for viral haemorrhagic fever in the Morningside Medi-Clinic is serious but stable, a hospital statement said on Saturday.
Spokeswoman Melinda Pelser said the sister had been diagnosed with the arenavirus, a type of viral haemorrhagic fever.
The nursing sister was confirmed as having viral haemorrhagic fever, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) announced on Sunday.
She had nursed one of the patients at the hospital who died of the disease.
The nursing sister was the only confirmed case of viral haemorrhagic fever at Morningside Medi-Clinic, said Pelser.
Medi-Clinic has a list of contacts who were being monitored and there were no other confirmed cases of the disease on the list.
Ninety-four people on the contact list, people who had close contact with any of the people who developed the disease, were being monitored by the hospital.
This monitoring was carried out at home or at work and the results telephoned in to Morningside Medi-Clinic.
Anyone who showed a change in temperature was brought into the hospital for increased temperature monitoring as part of this conservative monitoring protocol.
If there were fluctuations in temperature it does not mean that the person has symptoms of the disease, only that closer monitoring was advisable, she said.
Six people were admitted and discharged under the conservative monitoring protocol.
Constant monitoring of people on the contact list would continue for 21 days from the person’s last close contact with an infected person who had become sick.
The monitoring period ends as soon as the 21-day period expires and the person’s name would then be taken off the contact list.
A task team of local and international medical experts, mandated by the Gauteng Department of Health, visited Morningside Medi-Clinic on Tuesday afternoon and endorsed the infection control procedures in place there.
The task team said the hospital was safe for patients, visitors and medical procedures.
