A scabies outbreak at a Halifax hospital seems to be spreading; thirty nurses are now out with the highly-contagious skin infection caused by mites.

The outbreak began with a transplant patient who has been in the cardiovascular intensive care unit on the fifth floor of the Halifax Infirmary for almost two months.

Fifteen nurses were affected by the outbreak last week, prompting the cancellation of six surgeries on Friday due to a staff shortage.

Instead of one-to-one nurse-to-patient ratios in the intensive care unit, there were five nurses for 11 patients in the intensive care unit on Friday.

The Capital District Health Authority says 30 nurses are now affected by the scabies outbreak, but that the cardiac unit is fully staffed and surgeries are back on track.

“Today, we have a full complement of 10 nurses, 10 nurses for 10 patients in our cardiovascular intensive care unit,” says Everton McLean.

While the situation seems to have been contained in the cardiovascular intensive care unit, health officials are concerned the outbreak may spread to other parts of the hospital.

“There is some concern and the truth is there is a possibility of it moving to other units,” says McLean. “We’re monitoring it very closely to make sure it doesn’t happen.”

Joan Jessome, president of the Nova Scotia Government and General Employees Union, says it’s too soon to say how far the outbreak has spread.

“It has quite a…two-to-six week incubation period, so I think we’re just weeks away from just how widespread this is,” says Jessome.

There is also a concern among staff that it took a number of calls from ICU nurses to the hospital’s in-house health and safety line and a five-hour wait to see action.

“I do know the employer has acknowledged that it might be that they don’t have enough staff in that area,” says Jessome.

“Initially, they were investigating it as environmental hazard that was causing the rash,” says McLean.

The scabies outbreak was confirmed Thursday but CTV News was told that visits and surgeries continued and the patient wasn’t isolated until Friday. A cleaning crew was sent in Friday morning.

“I know that isolation in a case like this is critically important and that any delay is really too long,” says Nova Scotia Health Minister Leo Glavine.

Glavine learned of the scabies outbreak from CTV News on Friday, hours after meeting with the hospital’s CEO.

Glavine says dealing with the outbreak will be a top priority for his new deputy minister, Dr. Peter Vaughan.

“I think we have to learn from these sorts of situations, but I think things are back to normal today,” says Vaughan. “I think communication is a big part of it.”

The next issue faced by nurses is determining who will cover the cost of treatment to rid employees of scabies.

With files from CTV Atlantic's Rick Grant