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. 2020 Jun 19;20(1):429.
doi: 10.1186/s12879-020-05151-y.

Positive results for patients with COVID-19 discharged form hospital in Chongqing, China

Wang Deng  1   2 , Tian-Wen Guang  3 , Mei Yang  4 , Jian-Rong Li  5 , De-Peng Jiang  1   2 , Chang-Yi Li  1   2 , Dao-Xin Wang  6   7
Affiliations

Positive results for patients with COVID-19 discharged form hospital in Chongqing, China

Wang Deng et al. BMC Infect Dis. .

Abstract

Background: Since December 2019, over 80,000 patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have been confirmed in China. With the increasing number of recovered patients, more attention should be paid to the follow-up of these patients.

Methods: In the study, 576 patients with COVID-19 discharged from hospital in Chongqing, China from January 24, 2020, to March 10, 2020 were evaluated by viral nucleic acid tests for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2(SARS-CoV-2) to determine if they could be released from quarantine. Among the 576 patients, 61 patients (10.6%) had positive RT-PCR test results of SARS-CoV-2. We aimed to analyze the demographics, clinical characteristics and treatment of 61 patients.

Results: These positive patients were characterized by older age, chronic medical illness and mild conditions. 38 (62.3%) patients who were asymptomatic without abnormalities on chest radiographs were found in the positive with COVID-19. Also, they showed positive results of stool or sputum specimens with negative results of nasal and pharyngeal swab specimens. The median duration of positive result of SARS-CoV-2 was varied from 3 days to 35 days in the patients discharged from hospital with no family member infection.

Conclusions: Multi-site screening of SARS-CoV-2 including nasal and pharyngeal swabs, stool and sputum specimens could be considered to improve the diagnosis, treatment and infection control in patients with COVID-19. Our findings provide the important information and clinical evidence for the improved management of patients recovered from COVID-19.

Keywords: Coronavirus disease 2019; Hospital discharge; SARS-CoV-2.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interests.

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