Introduction:

the pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus faced Health Care Workers (HCW’s) with achallenge like never before. The Ismael Cosío Villegas National Institute of Respiratory Diseases, (INER), of Mexico, became a care center for patients with COVID-19.

Objective:

to publicize the results of a control program, in INER workers, based on frequent tests in oro/nasopharyngeal sampling to determine the presence of the virus, and thus isolate positive cases and detect asymptomatic ones.

Material and methods:

an oro/nasopharyngeal swab was performed for SARS-CoV-2 test by RT-PCR in all de HCWs who attended to Occupational Medicine Service. In case of being positive, he/she isolated him/herself at home for fourteen days. An epidemiological questionnaire was obteined if the acquisition of the disease had been community or nosocomial. A new sample was taken every 14 days until negative.

Results:

33,780 tests were performed on 4,772 of the HCW’s during the period April 2020-June 2023, of these, 4,160 were found to be positive. The months of January and July 2022 were the months with the most cases, (789 and 636, respectively). The nursing staff was the most affected with 1,106 positive cases.

Conclusions:

the application of a care protocol to the HCWs proved to be efficient in protecting with a low infection rate due to the use of PPE, continuous training and frequent control tests to avoid intrahospital transmission with zero mortality.