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London, Jan 18 (PTI) One in ten people may still be infectious for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, after the 10 day quarantine period, according to a study.<\/p>\n
The research, published recently in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases, used a newly adapted test which can detect whether the virus was potentially still active.<\/p>\n
The test was applied to samples from 176 people in Exeter, UK, who had tested positive on standard PCR tests.<\/p>\n
The team led by researchers at the University of Exeter found that 13 per cent of people still exhibited clinically-relevant levels of virus after 10 days, meaning they could potentially still be infectious.<\/p>\n
Some people retained these levels for up to 68 days, the researchers found.<\/p>\n
They believe this new test should be applied in settings where people are vulnerable, to stop the spread of COVID-19.<\/p>\n
“While this is a relatively small study, our results suggest that potentially active virus may sometimes persist beyond a 10 day period, and could pose a potential risk of onward transmission,” said Professor Lorna Harries, of the University of Exeter Medical School, who oversaw the study.<\/p>\n
“Furthermore, there was nothing clinically remarkable about these people, which means we wouldn’t be able to predict who they are,” Harries said.<\/p>\n
Conventional PCR tests work by testing for the presence of viral fragments.<\/p>\n
While these tests can tell if someone has recently had the virus, they cannot detect whether it is still active, and the person is infectious.<\/p>\n
However, the test used in the latest study gives a positive result only when the virus is active and potentially capable of onward transmission.<\/p>\n
“In some settings, such as people returning to care homes after illness, people continuing to be infectious after ten days could pose a serious public health risk,” said study lead author Merlin Davies, of the University of Exeter Medical School.<\/p>\n
“We may need to ensure people in those setting have a negative active virus test to ensure people are no longer infectious,” Davies added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
London, Jan 18 (PTI) One in ten people may still be infectious for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, after the 10 day quarantine period, according to a study. The research, published recently in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases, used a newly adapted test which can detect whether the virus was potentially still active. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-181957","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181957\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}