(CNN) – Governments are failing to keep accurate records of infections and deaths of nurses and health care workers treating coronavirus patients, the International Council of Nurses (ICN), a federation representing nurses from 130 countries, claimed.
As a result, the numbers are being “significantly” underestimated, the ICN said Monday. Data collected by the ICN from 30 countries suggests at least 90,000 health care workers have been infected and more than 260 nurses have died.
“Thousands of nurses have been infected with Covid-19 and hundreds have already died, but governments cannot say exactly how many because they are not collecting the data. This lack of accurate data has led to a serious underestimation of the infection rate among nurses, and the number of deaths,” the group said.
ICN said this failure to record both infection rates and deaths among health care workers is putting more nurses and their patients in danger. It is calling for data on health care worker infections and deaths to be systematically collected by national governments and held centrally at the World Health Organization.
This story was first published on CNN.com, “At least 90,000 health care workers infected with coronavirus around the world”
