In China, about 14% of the already recovered coronavirus patients have tested positive again, according to medical experts.
Research showed that approximately 3 to 14 percent of the people previously recovered from the virus have been diagnosed once more. Experts fear that China is in danger of facing a second outbreak wave. The increasing number of imported cases along with the ‘silent carriers’ who show no symptoms are believed to put the country at risk once again.
After officials in China have lifted the two-month oppressive lockdown, millions of Hubei residents, the center of the pandemic, are allowed to leave the province. Additionally, doctors at a Wuhan hospital have found that five of the 147 patients in a study tested positive again after recovery. This was stated by Wang Wei, director of the city’s Tongji Hospital.
Song Tie, deputy director of the provincial Centre for Disease Control and Prevention announced the terrifying statistic. In southern China’s Guangdong Province, 14% of the people who have already recovered, were сiagnosed with the pathogen once more. The hospital director notifies:
“Our sample size for this study was relatively small. We are planning to carry out large-scale research among local communities in Wuhan soon.”
The Wuhan medics conducted that the recovered patients showed no symptoms after testing positive again.
However, they found no evidence that they became contagious after recovery as their family members all tested negative. Moreover, Guangdong officials suggested the people in close contact with these patients weren’t infected by them.
Questions have been raised about the reliability of nucleic acid tests in detecting coronavirus traces in some of the recovered patients. Monitoring such patients would be crucial for handling the situation. Wang Wei explains:
“It’s possible that these recovered patients tested negative before because of false results. The accuracy of a nucleic acid test is 30 to 50 percent.”
Classified Chinese government data reveals that the true scale and of the hidden number of these ‘silent carriers’ could be higher than first thought. By the end of February, more than 43,000 people had tested positive for coronavirus in China without showing symptoms. Apparently, they were quarantined, but not counted in official figures, which stood at 80,000 at the time.
This shocking discovery lays massive complications upon the strategies being already used by countries to hold back the virus.
As of March 25, China had discharged 74,051 patients from hospitals. This is over 90% of its infected cases. Currently, scientists are unable to agree on what role asymptomatic transmission plays in spreading coronavirus.
