With coronavirus pandemic creating chaos all around the world another problem has been noticed as emerging out. The patients who were discharged from South Korea after being tested negative has been tested positive again. So the question arises getting tested negative from coronavirus still not useful for humans or there is a different angle behind this?
For the pandemic COVID-19, different countries are formulating and following different protocols. However how the countries around the world discharge a coronavirus patient from the hospital?
China:
China recommends discharging Covid-19 patients if they don't have fever for three days, show improved respiratory symptoms, reduced inflammation in respiratory tracts and test negative twice in consecutive samples taken at least 24 hours apart. After getting discharged, these patients are to stay in isolation - no contact with family members, separate dining and no outdoor activity -- for 14 more days. It is mandatory for them to wear a face mask and live in a room with good ventilation.
They have to visit a hospital for re-checkup after two weeks and then again for four weeks. The Chinese protocol calls for setting up a separate or specially designated hospital facility for cured Covid-19 patients' return visits and re-testing for novel coronavirus.
These procedures of China is followed almost all round the world for the treatment of coronavirus patients. However, the countries are free to modify the procedures depending upon the situation.
India:
In India when a coronavirus suspect tests positive then only hospital care begins, however, isolation commences when the doctor take samples of the suspects. Even if the patient's sample test negative, the person is discharged from the hospital only on the basis of clinical symptoms. Doctors take a call on individual cases.
If the laboratory test is positive for COVID-19, the patient is kept in hospital till key symptoms - fever, respiratory difficulties and coughing -- disappear, two consecutive tests return negative within 24 hours, and chest radiograph shows signs of clearance for the virus.
Like China, India too recommends a 14-day isolation process for recovered patients, like in China. Italy, the rest of Europe and the United States too have slightly altered the Chinese protocol for discharging cured COVID-19 patients.
Also Read: South Korea: 91 recovered coronavirus patients get re-infected
Usually, discharging a Covid-19 patient should be a simple matter, like in the cases of any other disease. But China and South Korea - the country of origin and one of the first to receive imported cases respectively - have now cautioned that many patients who had been discharged from hospital after having been confirmed as "recovered" coronavirus patients have tested positive again, in some cases, weeks after their discharge from hospital.
A study in China found close to 15 per cent patients were found positive for novel coronavirus after they were duly discharged from a Covid-19 hospital. The researchers said there is "need for additional measures to confirm illness resolution in Covid-19 patients".
South Korea has reported more than 90 patients as "positive again" for novel coronavirus after they had been cleared for discharge following treatment protocol for Covid-19.
Does this mean all such persons are still COVID-19 patients?
Doctors and scientists are still discovering the answer. Measures being taken by China and South Korea are being closely monitored by health experts around the world.
As a matter of rule, viral RNA - the one like novel coronavirus -- can persist over long periods of time in bodily fluids. This does not necessarily mean that the person is still infectious, says the technical report on Covid-19 by the European Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, the top health agency of the European Union. Isolation of viruses in virus culture is needed to show the infectivity of the virus, it recommends