London: Researchers have said that a few patients recouped from COVID-19 could still carry the infection, suggesting that recuperated patients should be more mindful and avoid close contact with others.
As indicated by the study, written in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, near 17 percent of patients considered completely recuperated from COVID-19 tested positive for the infection in follow-up screening.
Patients who kept on having respiratory symptoms, particularly sore throat and rhinitis, were bound to have another positive test result.
This indicates the persistence of these two symptoms should not be underestimated and should be sufficiently assessed in all patients considered recouped from COVID-19.
Study lead author Francesco Landi from Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Italy stated: “Clinicians and researchers have focused on the acute phase of Covid-19, but continued monitoring after discharge for long-lasting effects is needed.”
The study included 131 patients who met the World Health Organization (WHO) criteria for stopping of isolation at least fourteen days before the follow-up visit.
The WHO criteria indicate that the patient should be free of any kind of fever without fever-reducing medicines for three days, show improvement in any symptoms related to COVID-19, be over seven days past symptom onset, and test negative for the infection twice, with reverse transcription PCR (RT-PCR) testing.
Another RT-PCR test was managed at the hour of post-acute care admission.
Demographic, clinical, and medical data was gathered, with an emphasis on the persistence of indications and signs identified with COVID-19, for example, cough, weariness, diarrhea, headache, smelling problems, loss of appetite, sore throat, and rhinitis.
The discoveries indicated that 16.7 percent of the patients tested positive once more. There was no huge distinction between patients with positive and negative test results in terms of age or gender.
None of the patients had a fever and all revealed improvement in their general clinical condition.
Time since onset of infection, number of days hospitalized, and treatments received while hospitalized were not essential.
The main two indications that were higher and essentially common in patients with a positive test were sore throat (18 percent versus four percent) and indications of rhinitis (27 percent versus two percent).
Dr Landi noted, “Our findings indicate that a noteworthy rate of recovered patients with Covid-19 could still be asymptomatic carriers of the virus.”
