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At the heart of Castle Hill Hospital's vast complex of medical buildings sits Ward 7.

Nothing sets it apart, but the £1.63m complex infectious diseases unit is in fact at the forefront of the UK's fight against coronavirus.

Opened in May 2018, it came under the spotlight last month when it was confirmed that the country's first two cases were treated there.

The UK confirmed its ninth case of the virus on Thursday and Public Health England state that more cases of the disease are “highly likely”.

Castle Hill Hospital's unit is one of the UK’s few designated centres for treating patients with a range of complex illnesses.

They include multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (TB) and haemorrhagic illnesses such as Ebola, dengue and yellow fever.

Last month saw the unit faced patients contaminated by the new coronavirus for the first time.

Fortunately, the state of the art facilities are well equipped to deal with such circumstances with Ward 7 containing 12 specialist rooms.

Five of the rooms are “negative pressure” isolation facilities with lobbies and en-suite showers, including one designed to care for vulnerable adults.

These rooms even include special ventilation systems to prevent contaminated air escaping to other parts of the ward.

While in the same unit, six other high-specification rooms help patients with drug-resistant TB or other infections resistant to more than one form of antibiotic.

The ward also includes a family room on the ward where relatives can stay close to seriously ill loved ones.

But with the lengths authorities are going to prevent the spread of coronavirus an even stricter level of quarantine may have been administered.

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The two patients admitted to the ward last month are likely to have been treated in the units “high-isolation room” before being transferred to Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle.

The first of its kind in the Humber region, the room has a two separate routes - “dirty” and “clean" - where staff are able to take personal protection equipment on and off in a process known as “donning” and “doffing.”

In a statement ahead of the opening, Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust described the room as being: “For patients with Ebola or similar conditions who are awaiting transfer to specialist treatment centres in London or Newcastle.”

Across the globe there have been over 60,000 confirmed cases of Coronavirus with more than 1,300 deaths.

But the risk of coronavirus to individuals remains low in the UK.

As of 13 February, a total of 2,521 people have been tested, of which 2,512 were confirmed negative and 9 positive.