According to reports, About 14% of patients who recovered from coronavirus have tested positive for the disease again in China’s Guangdong Province.
Doctors at a hospital in Wuhan, China, where the virus emerged reported that between 3 and 14% of cured patients became reinfected with the illness, though it’s unclear whether they were contagious the second time.
The news came as experts feared that China is facing a second outbreak due to the increasing number of imported cases as well as the silent carriers who show no symptoms identified as asymptomatic patients.
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Tongji Hospital, which identified the first coronavirus case, confirmed that five of 145 patients, which is a little over 3% tested positive again in nucleic acid tests, according to state broadcaster CCTV.
According to Wang Wei, who is the hospital’s president, five patients who tested positive again did not have any symptoms and none of their close contacts had been infected.
He revealed that surveillance of similar patients showed that 80 to 90% had no trace of the virus in their system one month after being discharged from the hospital, according to the report.
Health news outlet Life Times, which is affiliated with state-run newspaper People’s Daily also reported that other quarantine facilities in Wuhan have seen about 5 to 10% of their recovered patients test positive again.