About 14% of patients who recovered from Covid-19 infection and were discharged in Guangdong province, which borders Macau, returned to test positive for coronavirus in subsequent tests.
According to the deputy director of the Guangdong Epidemic Control and Prevention Center, Song Tie, there are still no “clear conclusions” about what happened, nor is it known whether patients can infect others.
Song noted that, according to a preliminary assessment, experts believe that patients are still recovering from lung infections and need to recover fully.
The most recent criteria of the National Health Commission of China state that a patient can be cured and discharged from the hospital when samples of the throat or nose are negative on two consecutive tests and a CT scan does not indicate lung injury, in addition to absence of obvious symptoms, such as fever.
The criteria prescribe that recovered patients must monitor their health and limit outdoor activities until two weeks after leaving the hospital, in addition to undergoing further tests in the following weeks.
However, tests on some discharged patients were positive again, explained Li Yueping, director of the intensive care unit at People’s Hospital No. 8 in Guangzhou, the provincial capital.
Thirteen patients who were discharged from that hospital were again positive, although none of them had symptoms again, explained Li.
Cited by news portal Caixin, director of the hospital’s Infectious Diseases Division, Cai Weiping, said patients tested positive for stool tests, a method that is rarely used in other parts of the country.
Some hospitals in Guangdong started testing patients’ feces after an investigation by the Guangzhou Medical University detected the virus in feces, which points to a new route of transmission.
Cai Weiping indicated that it is still unclear whether the virus detected in recovered patients is still active.
Song said the province would place the recovered patients under more strict observation.
In total, Guangdong recorded 1,347 cases, the second highest number among the 27 provinces and autonomous regions of mainland China, but well below the figure reported by Hubei province, the center of the new coronavirus.
The province counted seven deaths, in total, including one in the city of Zhuhai, which borders Macau, and which has reported, to date, 98 cases of infection with the new coronavirus.
Guangdong did not report any new cases until midnight today (4 pm Tuesday in Lisbon).
The number of patients across China totaled 78,064, while the death toll rose to 2,715.
Guangdong is the Chinese province that exports the most and the first to benefit from the economic reforms adopted by the country in the late 1970s. The province integrates three of China’s six Special Economic Zones – Shenzhen, Shantou and Zhuhai -, receiving millions of migrant workers.
Macau has registered 10 cases of infection with the Covid-19 coronavirus, but seven people have now been discharged.
Authorities sent students and public officials home and even ordered the casinos to be closed for 15 days, which reopened on Thursday.
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