Aflac Life Insurance Japan has revealed that one of its employees, a temporary staff member at its call centre in Kobe City, has tested positive for COVID-19.
According to a statement by the insurer, the employee tested positive on March 03, after they attended an event in Osaka where multiple participants also contracted the virus.
The company said that the employee had no face-to-face interactions with customers, and the Kobe call centre’s operations remain unaffected. Aflac added that it has multiple call centres in Japan and business operations remain as usual.
“As an immediate response, we have taken the actions below to prevent infection spread and will take necessary measures such as facility disinfection, etc. in cooperation with the public health centre in charge,” the company said in its statement.
The company has instructed the infected person to refrain from going to the office and to continuously monitor their health situation. It launched an investigation into the past activities of the infected individual and identified persons in close contact with them. The 10 identified people who have been in close contact with the infected individual were advised to stay at home for two weeks and to continuously monitor their health condition.
Aflac said that it is implementing various measures to prevent spread of the infection – such as promoting staggered working hours, teleworking, limiting face-to-face internal meetings and trainings with multiple participants, and restricting domestic and overseas business trips.
