当院における新型コロナウイルス感染症院内クラスターの経験

We experienced a hospital cluster of COVID-19 in April 2021. The index case developed respiratory failure during hospitalization and was diagnosed with COVID-19 on day 8 of admission. Eleven people in the same ward were diagnosed with COVID-19 in relation to the case. All the patient in the ward were isolated. The ward stopped accepting new admissions. A task force was set up to conduct COVID-19 screening, infection control, patients and family support, and public information. No new cases occurred after day 12 of the outbreak. We started accepting new admissions to the ward on day 24, and declared convergence on day 47 of the outbreak. Since COVID-19 epidemic, our hospital had been developing infection control such as preoperative screening and providing education to the medical staff on infection prevention, which was not enough to prevent from the occurrence and spread of the COVID-19 nosocomial infections. The author, who was a clinical resident in the clinical training hospital at the time, experienced the outbreak and the process how it had been converged. From the resident’s perspective, we analyzed the factors that caused the outbreak, and discussed the efforts we had taken to converge it.