Covid-19 survivors should not drop their guard and should avoid close contact with others as they could still be carrying the virulent coronavirus, researchers have said.
According to a study, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, about 16.7 per cent of patients considered fully recovered, as per the WHO criteria, from Covid-19 tested positive for the virus in follow-up screening.
Patients who continued to have respiratory symptoms, especially sore throat and rhinitis, were more likely to have a new positive test result.
This suggests the persistence of these two symptoms should not be underestimated and should be adequately assessed in all patients considered recovered from Covid-19.
Researchers from Agostino Gemelli University Policlinic looked at a group of recovering Covid patients to see how their bodies react after treatment and quarantine. The study included 131 patients who all met the WHO’s guidelines for ending quarantine following their infections. Those guidelines require a patient to be fever-free without using medications for three days. They must also have an improvement in their symptoms and test negative for Covid twice at least 24 hours apart.
“Researchers have focused on the acute phase of Covid-19, but continued monitoring after discharge for long-lasting effects is needed,” said the study lead author Francesco Landi from Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Italy.
A new RT-PCR test was administered at the time of post-acute care admission.
Demographic, medical, and clinical information was collected, with an emphasis on the persistence of symptoms and signs related to Covid-19 such as cough, fatigue, diarrhea, headache, smelling disorders, loss of appetite, sore throat, and rhinitis.
The findings showed that 16.7 percent of the patients tested positive again. There was no significant difference between patients with positive and negative test results in terms of age or sex. None of the patients had a fever and all reported improvement in their overall clinical condition.
The only two symptoms that were higher and significantly prevalent in patients with a positive test were sore throat (18 per cent vs four per cent) and signs of rhinitis (27 per cent vs two per cent).
Our findings indicate that a noteworthy rate of recovered patients with COVID-19 could still be asymptomatic carriers of the virus,” Dr Landi observed.
“The main question for the containment of SARS-CoV-2 pandemic infection that still needs to be answered is whether the persistent presence of virus fragments means the patient is still contagious. The RT-PCR test looks for small fragments of viral RNA. A positive swab test can reveal if patients are still shedding viral fragments, but it is not able to discern whether they are or aren’t infectious,” he added.
