Excelsior Correspondent
Srinagar, June 4: The Doctors Association Kashmir (DAK) today said that some Covid-19 patients testing positive weeks after recovering from the infection can’t transmit the infection to others.
In a statement issued here, DAK President Dr Nisar ul Hassan said that the RT-PCR test can detect the virus weeks after Covid patients have recovered from the illness. “That does not mean that a person is infectious and able to transmit the virus to another person,” he said.
Dr Nisar said that in most Covid-19 positive cases, the virus dies after the 7th or the 8th day of the illness. At that time virus cannot be transmitted to another person.
“But the dead virus can still be picked up by RT PCR test and the report may still come positive, even when a person has become free from Covid; RT-PCR test which is used to detect Covid-19 cannot distinguish whether the virus in the patient is dead or alive,” he said.
DAK President said that the virus culture can tell us whether the positive test has picked up an active virus that can reproduce and spread or just a dead virus that won’t transmit to others.
Quoting a Korean study, DAK President said people who had recovered from Covid and tested positive again were not found to be contagious. “That means they didn’t transmit the virus to others, based on virus culture that failed to find live viruses in recovered patients and testing positive after recovery has caused a lot of unnecessary stress and panic among recovered Covid-19 persons,” he said.
Dr Nisar said to avoid unnecessarily prolonged isolation and unnecessary use of laboratory testing resources, retesting is not recommended now
“Under the new guidelines, Covid patients have to remain in isolation for 10 days after the symptom onset plus at least 3 additional days without symptoms,” he said.
Follow our WhatsApp channel