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South Korea’s COVID-19 Infection Status: From the Perspective of Re-positive Test Results After Viral Clearance Evidenced by Negative Test Results

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) started to occur in South Korea by means of inflow of the virus from abroad, when a case from Wuhan, China, was first confirmed on January 19, 2020. Although South Korea has drastically reduced the number of new confirmed cases and is stabilizing the situation with its...

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Autor principal: Kang, Yun-Jung
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Cambridge University Press 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7298089/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32438941
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/dmp.2020.168
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author Kang, Yun-Jung
author_facet Kang, Yun-Jung
author_sort Kang, Yun-Jung
collection PubMed
description Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) started to occur in South Korea by means of inflow of the virus from abroad, when a case from Wuhan, China, was first confirmed on January 19, 2020. Although South Korea has drastically reduced the number of new confirmed cases and is stabilizing the situation with its exemplary disease prevention policies, there remains a problem. These are cases that had shown negative results to polymerase chain reaction (PCR) (gene amplification) tests as the COVID-19 virus had become undetectable but turned re-positive after a short period. The Central Clinical Committee determined that these re-positive cases after COVID-19 viral clearance are due to the limits of the test method; it is considered that the genetic material of the “dead virus” remaining in a recovered patient’s body is amplified during the test process. Comprehending the above evidence, re-positive cases of COVID-19 are not infectious; the virus is not even reactivated. However, further research is required as we lack research results on this subject. Until we can be sure, social distancing and other such policies should be maintained.
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spelling pubmed-72980892020-06-17 South Korea’s COVID-19 Infection Status: From the Perspective of Re-positive Test Results After Viral Clearance Evidenced by Negative Test Results Kang, Yun-Jung Disaster Med Public Health Prep Brief Report Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) started to occur in South Korea by means of inflow of the virus from abroad, when a case from Wuhan, China, was first confirmed on January 19, 2020. Although South Korea has drastically reduced the number of new confirmed cases and is stabilizing the situation with its exemplary disease prevention policies, there remains a problem. These are cases that had shown negative results to polymerase chain reaction (PCR) (gene amplification) tests as the COVID-19 virus had become undetectable but turned re-positive after a short period. The Central Clinical Committee determined that these re-positive cases after COVID-19 viral clearance are due to the limits of the test method; it is considered that the genetic material of the “dead virus” remaining in a recovered patient’s body is amplified during the test process. Comprehending the above evidence, re-positive cases of COVID-19 are not infectious; the virus is not even reactivated. However, further research is required as we lack research results on this subject. Until we can be sure, social distancing and other such policies should be maintained. Cambridge University Press 2020-05-22 /pmc/articles/PMC7298089/ /pubmed/32438941 http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/dmp.2020.168 Text en © Society for Disaster Medicine and Public Health, Inc. 2020 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Brief Report
Kang, Yun-Jung
South Korea’s COVID-19 Infection Status: From the Perspective of Re-positive Test Results After Viral Clearance Evidenced by Negative Test Results
title South Korea’s COVID-19 Infection Status: From the Perspective of Re-positive Test Results After Viral Clearance Evidenced by Negative Test Results
title_full South Korea’s COVID-19 Infection Status: From the Perspective of Re-positive Test Results After Viral Clearance Evidenced by Negative Test Results
title_fullStr South Korea’s COVID-19 Infection Status: From the Perspective of Re-positive Test Results After Viral Clearance Evidenced by Negative Test Results
title_full_unstemmed South Korea’s COVID-19 Infection Status: From the Perspective of Re-positive Test Results After Viral Clearance Evidenced by Negative Test Results
title_short South Korea’s COVID-19 Infection Status: From the Perspective of Re-positive Test Results After Viral Clearance Evidenced by Negative Test Results
title_sort south korea’s covid-19 infection status: from the perspective of re-positive test results after viral clearance evidenced by negative test results
topic Brief Report
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7298089/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32438941
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/dmp.2020.168
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