Our Reporter
A WORRIED World Health Organization (WHO) is looking into claims that some Covid-19 patients have tested positive again after initially testing negative for the disease while being considered for discharge.
South Korean officials on Friday reported 91 patients thought cleared of the new coronavirus had tested positive again.
Jeong Eun-kyeong, director of the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told reporters that the virus may have been “reactivated” rather than the patients being re-infected.
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The organization said yesterday that it was aware of “these reports of individuals who have tested negative for Covid-19 using PCR (polymerase chain reaction) testing and then after some days testing positive again.
“We are closely liaising with our clinical experts and working hard to get more information on those individual cases. It is important to make sure that when samples are collected for testing on suspected patients, procedures are followed properly.
“We are aware that some patients are PCR positive after they clinically recover, but we need systematic collection of samples from recovered patients to better understand how long they shed live virus.
“As Covid-19 is a new disease, we need more epidemiological data to draw any conclusions of virus shedding profile.”
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