Successfully recovered patients from Covid-19 may still carry virus in their body: Study
New Delhi: As everyone considers coronavirus deadliest virus – One other study says that coronavirus may remain in a body for a long time after recovered successfully.
According to a new study which recommends that people leaving quarantine avoid close contact with others, wear a face mask, and possibly undergo an additional test to confirm if they are free of the virus.
A study was done on 131 coronavirus infected patients and they found that 17 percent remain positive after recovering successfully. Researcher had followed Covid-19 patients after their recovery to assess the impact of the virus on their bodies.
Study co-author Francesco Landi from Fondazione Policlinico Universitario in Italy said that “Our findings indicate that a noteworthy rate of recovered patients with Covid-19 could still be asymptomatic carriers of the virus.”
The researcher said that “the persistence of these two symptoms should not be underestimated and must be adequately assessed in all patients considered recovered from Covid-19.” Study found that patients who continued to have respiratory symptoms, especially sore throat and rhinitis, were more likely to have a new positive test result.
Further Francesco Landi explained that “Clinicians and researchers have focused on the acute phase of Covid-19, but continued monitoring after discharge for long-lasting effects is needed.”
Study specifies that patients should be fever-free without fever-reducing medications for three days, show improvement in any symptoms related to Covid-19, and be more than seven days past symptom onset. According to the WHO criteria, the patients must also test negative for the SARS-CoV-2 virus twice, at least 24 hours apart, with reverse transcription PCR (RT-PCR) testing.
The researcher had collected medical, clinical and demographical information from the patients in which he considered symptoms and signs related to Covid-19 such as cough, fatigue, diarrhea, headache, smelling disorders, loss of appetite, sore throat, and rhinitis.
Their analysis found that twenty-two means 16.7 percent of the patients tested positive again. The study did not find any significant difference between patients with positive and negative test results in terms of age or sex.
It noted that none of the patients had fever and all reported improvement in their overall clinical condition. According to the research the time since onset of disease, number of days hospitalised, and treatments received while receiving care were not significant.
However, researcher said that “some symptoms such as fatigue (51 percent), laboured breathing (44 percent) and coughing (17 percent) were still present in a significant percentage of the patients studied.
Scientists added that there were no significant differences between individuals with a positive or negative test. The only two symptoms that were higher and significantly prevalent in patients with a positive test were sore throat and signs of rhinitis.
“The main question for the containment of SARS-CoV-2 pandemic infection that still needs to be answered is whether persistent presence of virus fragments means the patient is still contagious, but it is not able to discern whether they are or aren’t infectious,” Landi said.
_Vinayak
