Published in:
01-02-2021 | COVID-19 | Brief Report
Prevalence and outcomes of re-positive nucleic acid tests in discharged COVID-19 patients
Published in: European Journal of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases | Issue 2/2021
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The prevalence and outcomes of patients who had re-activation of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) after discharge remain poorly understood. We included 126 consecutively confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 2-month follow-up data after discharge in this retrospective study. The upper respiratory specimen using a reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction test of three patients (71 years [60–76]) were positive within 11–20 days after their discharge, with an event rate of 19.8 (95%CI 2.60–42.1) per 1,000,000 patient-days. Moreover, all re-positive patients were asymptomatic. Our findings suggest that few recovered patients may still be virus carriers even after reaching the discharge criteria.