With each passing day, we are finding more information about the invisible and powerful enemy, the novel coronavirus, which has caused the pandemic around the world. There are around 8, 00,000 cases of COVID-19 that have been identified around the world, and nearly 40,000 have died due to this pandemic.
The curve can be flattened by taking the most extreme social distancing measures combined with proper hygiene practice, along with the treatment that needs to be learned to treat COVID 19 as fast as possible. The faster the illness is identified; the better is the prognosis, especially for at-risk patients. Based on the new study, it has been found that the hospital shouldn’t hurry to discharge the patients as early as possible, as some of them might still be contagious for COVID-19 even after the symptoms have disappeared.
It has been discovered by the scientists from the Treatment Centre of PLA General Hospital in and the Yale University School of Medicine that half of the patients showed the traces of the virus even after the symptoms disappeared after eight days. The symptoms include fever, cough, throat ache, and difficulty in breathing. There were all mild cases, with one requiring mechanical ventilation.
One of the most vital findings from our study was that half of the patients were kept on shedding the virus even after their symptoms were resolved.
The incubation period during the study was five days for the 15 of the 16 patients, and the average duration of the symptom was eight days. Even after eight days when the symptoms were gone, the patient tested positive for the COVID-19.
To determine how long the virus stays in the system even after the symptoms have gone, the patients were tested every other day. Only after testing twice negative, the patients were discharged.
COVID-19 patients can be infectious even after the symptomatic recovery is what the researchers had given a clear message. So it is necessary to treat asymptomatic/ recently recovered patients as symptomatic patients. Even though the scientists have claimed that they have done a limited study, and more research is required to determine how contagious a patient is after the symptoms disappear. Whether this kind of study will be able to explain why some patient retests positive even after being declared cured is still unclear.