Recovered Coronavirus Patients In China Are Testing Positive Weeks Later

A growing number of recuperated coronavirus patients in China are keeping to be diagnosed with the virus without having any obvious symptoms, as indicated by Reuters.

In Wuhan, when the outbreak started, doctors stated that some recovered patients have tested positive again for the virus, but without showing any symptoms. Some of them tested positive again after 70 days of the total recovery. As a result, Reuters and other media reports expect that there are many of the recovered people had experienced the same thing and China did not announce the exact number.

About 1,000 people in South Korea have reportedly tested positive for four weeks or more, and in Italy, health officials said patients could test positive for more than a month.

“We did not see anything like this during SARS,” Yuan Yufeng, a vice president at Zhongnan Hospital in Wuhan told Reuters, speaking on a case in which a patient had positive re-tests after first being diagnosed with the virus about 70 days earlier.

Health experts have previously noted the possibility of testing errors and released patients from hospitals too early as a more likely cause of recovered patients testing positive again, but the ongoing reports of recovered patients testing positive underlines how much is unknown about COVID-19.

The World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed earlier this month it is investigating such incidents in response to the reports out of South Korea.

“We are closely liaising with our clinical experts and working hard to get more information on those individual cases. It is important to make sure that when samples are collected for testing on suspected patients, procedures are followed properly,” the WHO said.

Almost 1,000 people in South Korea have had the virus for a month or more, and also in Italy, there are people who test positive for more than a month.

Doctors have formerly addressed the potential of experimenting errors and letting patients out of hospitals too early can cause them -recovered patients- to catch the virus again.

The World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed earlier this month that it is “investigating such incidents in response to the reports out of South Korea.”