key: cord-0936278-ex8cjw85
authors: Alizargar, Javad
title: Risk of reactivation or reinfection of novel coronavirus (COVID-19)
date: 2020-04-23
journal: J Formos Med Assoc
DOI: 10.1016/j.jfma.2020.04.013
sha: 20b0e16c75d99be5a8041a5b2115cc6338e29ba8
doc_id: 936278
cord_uid: ex8cjw85

nan

I read with great interest the article by Cheng et al. 1 in which they tried to introduce the first confirmed case of novel coronavirus pneumonia (COVID-19) in Taiwan and described her self-recovery process. Joob et al. expressed their concerns about the infection that remains underdetected with self-recovery assumptions in another correspondence paper. 2 In a letter to the editor paper that later published in the journal of Formosan medical association, Cheng et al. 3 confirmed that negative results have been obtained four times from sputum and throat and also urine in this patient. Due to the expansion of the COVID-19 epidemy in different parts of the world, more and more cases are getting infected and of course, many people will be recovering from this viral infection as today April 15 in Taiwan, only 6 deaths have been reported out of 395 cases and 137 patients with confirmed infection have been released from the isolation. 4 So, it is very important to be sure about the negative cases to be truly negative. Another concern is the reactivation of cases that got the infection, recovered and left isolation. This issue has been brought to the public attention as on April 13, South Korea reported that 116 recovered cases of COVID-19 has been found positive again. 5 As Korean approach to mark a patient as negative is two negative samples in within 24 h 6 more precautions seem to be needed to be sure a patient had truly recovered from COVID-19 or may not reactivate again after recovery. 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  12  13  14  15  16  17  18  19  20  21  22  23  24  25  26  27  28  29  30  31  32  33  34  35  36  37  38  39  40  41  42  43  44  45  46  47  48  49  50  51  52  53  54  55  56  57  58  59  60 

First case of coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pneumonia in Taiwan

COVID-19 pneumonia in Taiwan

Author reply to letters to the editor "COVID-19 pneumonia in Taiwan

South Korea reports more recovered coronavirus patients testing positive again

Doctor's Note: Can the coronavirus reactivate

Please cite this article as: Alizargar J, Risk of reactivation or reinfection of novel coronavirus (COVID-19)

The authors have no conflicts of interest relevant to this article.

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