Spain is, by far, the country with the highest number of corona-virus infections among healthcare workers, according to official data.
A report published at the end of April by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) found that 20 per cent of registered coronavirus cases in Spain are healthcare workers, compared with 10 per cent in Italy, another European country hard hit by COVID-19. In the United States, infected healthcare workers represented 3 per cent of total cases, while in China they were 3.8 per cent.
The Spanish Health Ministry reported that 35,295 healthcare workers had been infected, using figures up to 21 April. At that point, 37 health workers had died of coronavirus in Spain. In Italy, the second most affected European country, there were just under 18,000 infected healthcare workers, according to Italian health authorities.
Leading Spanish daily El Pais estimated that nearly 12,000 employees of aged care centres had also been infected.
The Spanish nurses’ union Satse estimates that between 60–65 per cent of affected healthcare workers are nurses.
“(Spanish) healthcare professionals went to war without protection,” Daniel López Acuña, a former WHO official who teaches at the Andalusian School of Public Health told El Pais.
Satse said it would report this “deplorable situation” to the WHO, the International Labor Organisation and the European Commission.