E-Paper
This doctor tested Covid +ve in July. A month on, he is positive again
The doctor from Dehradun has tested positive in an antigen test, a month after he recovered the first time from Covid-19 infection, informed officials.
The Uttarakhand government on Thursday claimed that a doctor who was coronavirus positive in July, has again tested positive in an antigen test.
The doctor from Dehradun has tested positive in an antigen test, a month after he recovered the first time from Covid-19 infection, informed officials.
However, according to medical experts, in cases of suspected Covid reinfection, a genomic test of viral strains is required to ascertain whether the patient has been really reinfected. This has not been done in this case.
“This is likely the first time that a case of reinfection of Covid-19 has been reported from Uttarakhand. The person who has tested positive had continued exposure and it could be that they got re-infected because of that,” said Dr Pankaj Singh, state surveillance officer, Integrated Diseases Surveillance Project.
The patient, who looks after collection of Covid-19 samples for the health department in Dehradun district, had first tested positive on July 23 and the second test (antigen test) came positive on Monday.
“First time I tested positive on July 23 after which I had recovered. Around August 10, my RT-PCR test had also tested negative. Around the weekend, I had slight fever and cough and because I am involved in the sampling process for Covid-19, I thought that I should get myself tested. On Monday, I tested positive again in an antigen test and I isolated myself at home,” said the doctor, who was not willing to be named.
Dr Anurag Aggarwal, nodal officer for coronavirus treatment in Uttarakhand from Government Doon Medical College Hospital, said, “When cases were first being reported in the state, certain patients tested negative after around 30-35 days. So that could be the case in this situation, that the virus from the first time is active till 40-50 days from first testing positive. The second situation could be that the person has been reinfected. It is difficult to say if the first condition works on this patient as it has been almost a month testing positive for the first time.”
When asked if samples of the doctor have been sent for genome testing to confirm if it is a case of re-infection, Dr Aggarwal said, “We are not clear if a genome test is being done, we have not even received any guidelines on this as of now.”
However, the doctor who tested positive said that health officials have taken a sample for RT-PCR test too, through which “they would be studying the viral strain”.
