A growing number of recovered COVID-19 patients are relapsing in South Korea, raising new questions and concerns among scientists and health authorities after the country successfully flattened the curve.
By Friday, Korean health authorities had identified 163 patients who tested positive again after a full recovery. The number more than doubled in about a week, up from 74 cases on April 9. Those patients — just over 2% of the country’s 7,829 recovered patients — are now back in isolation.
According to Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data on Friday, the age and regional distribution of relapse cases are largely in line with that of the total infections.
To find out reasons for relapse, South Korean health authorities are running a range of tests and vetting various scenarios. The World Health Organization said last week that it is investigating the issue. While a fuller analysis will take at least a few weeks, early findings suggest there can be more than one cause.
Top KCDC officials said in recent briefings that the most likely possibility is reactivation of remaining viruses in patients’ systems. If a patient had not developed sufficient immunity against the virus or if a patient’s immune system weakens after recovery, the previously undetectable level of virus concentration could rebound. Or the novel coronavirus may be capable of staying dormant before reactivating…
To read the entire article from NPR, click https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/17/836747242/in-south-korea-a-growing-number-of-covid-19-patients-test-positive-after-recover