Published Wednesday, April 1, 2020 

By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

On Tuesday, the first hospital in the country began operating exclusively for the care of patients infected with the coronavirus covid-19, announced Social Security.

The country has a confirmed 347 patients infected with the covid-19, reported the Ministry of Health on Tuesday.

The hospital known as the Specialized Patient Care Center with Covid-19, CEACO, was built in the facilities of the former National Rehabilitation Center in La Uruca Distric, San José Province.

"CEACO will be our shield hospital in the protection of people whose health is compromised by covid-19 and who require specialized medical care," said Román Macaya Hayes, president of the Social Security.

"The complete rebuild of this medical center, with the best technology and the best professionals will serve to save the lives of many patients," said President Carlos Alvarado.

Among the main upgrades in the hospital was a fiber-optic network for the use of medical records, the installation network for medical gases and oxygen systems, air conditioning equipment, medical equipment, among other improvements.


Also, the hospital was provided with specialized equipment such as 48 pulmonary ventilators, 2 video laryngoscopes, 1 portable X-ray equipment, 88 secretion aspirators, 88 MSV transport vehicles, 22 infrared non-contact thermometers, plasma equipment for the sterilization of medical equipment, among others.

The new hospital can attend 88 patients in intensive care with a team of 1,350 specialists, who will work three shifts, 24 hours a day.

The new medical resources, infrastructure and equipment will enable two types of patients to be attended, those who require support through a pulmonary ventilator and who need more intensive monitoring, and patients who require hospitalization for covid-19 pathology.

Social Security invested $16 million to develop the hospital.

CEACO will not take over all the cases of patients infected with covid-19, medical attention will still be provided at public hospitals throughout the country.

On Tuesday, the Ministry of Health announced that it had authorized three additional private laboratories to carry out the covid-19 test.

These laboratories are Echandi, Hospital La Católica and Hospital Cima. These are in addition to other private laboratories that were authorized last week. Those are LABIN, Hospital Clínica Bíblica, Páez, Lab. San José and Hospital Metropolitano.

The public hospitals that are carrying out these covid-19 medical tests are San Juan de Dios, Hospital México, Hospital Nacional de Niños, INCIENSA and the Laboratory of the University of Costa Rica.

In the latest report released on Tuesday, authorities from the Health Ministry confirmed 17 new cases rising to a total of 347 patients in the country.

Of those patients, 15 are being treated in public hospitals, eight of them have been reported  in intensive care with delicate health conditions.

The patient’ ages range from 1 to 87 with an average age of 40. Of those, 14 are children under the age of 13, 309 are between 18 and 70 years old, and 24 are elder patients over the age of 70.

Of those infected, 167 are women (48%) and 180 are men (52%). It was reported 320 infected cases are Costa Ricans and 27 are foreigners.

Four coronavirus patients fully recovered. Two of those were U.S. citizens who were reported to have left the country.

Seven patients are already in the process of receiving results from their latest medical tests hoping to be cleared and classified as fully recovered from the virus, as well as not being a threat to the public.

As was previously reported, two patients hospitalized in intensive care at San Rafael Hospital in Alajuela Province, both 87-year-old seniors, died due to the coronavirus covid-19.

Since the virus was detected in the country in the first week of March, 3,498 people have been ruled out.


The virus has spread throughout Costa Rica. The ministry has enabled a map of the country on the UNED University website, where the number of infected people in each canton is updated daily.

As of today, the pandemic has killed 42,081 people around the world, according to recent statistics reported by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.