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Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - The Ministry of Health on Friday closed the Intensive Care Unit at the Zarqa Public Hospital that is believed to be the source for an infectious disease that affected a number of staff working in the hospital, one of whom died on Thursday.

In a statement that was sent to The Jordan Times on Friday, the ministry’s Secretary General Daifallah Louzi said seven nurses, a doctor and a family member of one of the nurses, were infected with the disease that is believed to be “pneumonia”.

He noted that the investigations proved that the ICU was the source of this infection, adding that one of the nurses died on Thursday.

According to Louzi, the doctor was discharged from hospital after receiving the needed treatment while three are expected to discharged within the next 24 hours.

He explained that patients who contracted the disease were transferred to Amman’s Prince Hamzeh Hospital.

In addition, the ICU at Zarqa hospital will be reopened after being sterilized, Louzi said, adding that infection control measures are currently implemented in other facilities at the hospital which continues to receive patients as normal.

Meanwhile, nurses working at Zarqa hospital blamed its management for not taking the proper infection control measures when the first case was diagnosed.

“The management refused to let us use masks claiming that other patients will be terrified … as they would think there is an outbreak at the hospital,” a Zarqa hospital nurse told The Jordan Times on condition of anonymity.

She also claimed that nurses used to purchase masks from pharmacies as the hospital’s management refused to provide them with masks.

Jordan Times