14% of recovered coronavirus patients in China test positive again

Up to 14 per cent of the recovered coronavirus patients in China have tested positive again, a fresh report revealed.

According to Mail Online, medical experts revealed that three to 14 per cent of the former patients were diagnosed with the virus once more after being given the all-clear.

The news came as experts feared that China is facing a second outbreak due to the increasing number of imported cases as well as the “silent carriers” who show no symptoms.

Millions of residents of Hubei, the former centre of the pandemic, can now leave the province after officials lifted a two-month draconian lockdown.

Doctors in one hospital in Wuhan found that five of the 147 patients in a study tested positive again after recovery, Wang Wei, director of the city’s Tongji Hospital, told the state broadcaster CCTV yesterday.

Meanwhile, 14 per cent of those who recovered were diagnosed with the pathogen later in southern China’s Guangdong Province, said Song Tie, deputy director of the provincial Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.

Guangdong officials also suggested the people in close contact with such recovered patients weren’t infected by them.

Medical experts have raised questions about if nucleic acid tests are reliable in detecting traces of the virus in some of the recovered patients.