Coronavirus: young people more likely to retest positive after treatment, study says
- Of the 38 people who retested positive for infection after being discharged from hospital, seven were aged under 14, researchers say
- Study, which has yet to be peer-reviewed, was based on a sample of 262 former patients of Shenzhen 3rd People’s Hospital in Guangdong province
According to the researchers, 38 of 262 subjects – all of whom were observed for at least two weeks – retested positive, which was almost identical to the proportion – 14 per cent – found in a study conducted in late February by health authorities in southern China’s Guangdong province.
However, research conducted last month by a team from Tongji Hospital in Wuhan – the central China city at the epicentre of the initial outbreak – returned a positive retest figure of just 3 per cent.
The latest study, which was conducted by reseachers from Shenzhen 3rd People’s Hospital, Beijing Tsinghua Changgung Hospital, Southern University of Science and Technology and MIT, was published on Medrxv.org and has yet to be peer-reviewed.
The subjects had all been patients at Shenzhen 3rd People’s Hospital in Guangdong between January 23 and February 25.
The researchers said the results appeared to suggest that younger people were more likely to retest positive, as were those who had suffered only mild symptoms.
Of the 38 patients who retested positive after discharge, just one was aged over 60, while seven were under 14, it said.
Also, of the 38, only “a small number reported a mild cough and chest tightness, which was not worse than before”, while none experienced a fever, it said.