Had he not received medical care, maintained social distancing, and worn a mask, he could have spread the virus over those seven months.
A 38-year-old man who had mild symptoms of Covid-19 for 20 days continued to harbor the virus for 232 days, according to a study by the Plataforma Científica Pasteur-USP. Had the man not received ongoing medical care, maintained social distancing and worn a mask, he could have spread the virus over those seven months, the researchers said.
The case was part of a study involving 38 Brazilian patients followed up weekly between April and November 2020. Patients were followed until they had a negative result two or three consecutive times by RT-qPCR. The study was published in the journal Frontiers in Medicine.
It serves as a warning about the risk of limiting the quarantine for Covid-19 patients to seven, ten or even 14 days after testing positive, as initially prescribed by the protocols to combat the disease. It also reinforces the importance of vaccination, social distancing and the use of masks.
“Of the 38 cases we tracked, two men and one woman were atypical in the sense that the virus was continuously detected in their body for more than 70 days. Based on this result, we can say that about 8% of people infected with SARS-CoV-2 may be able to transmit the virus for more than two months, without necessarily showing any symptoms during the final phase of the infection,” said Marielton dos Santos. Passos Cunha, first author of the article.
“We wanted to know if a period of 14 days was really long enough for the virus to stop being detectable. We conclude not. It can take a month for a patient to test negative, and in some cases included in our study, patients remained positive for 71 to 232 days,” said Paola Minoprio, one of the coordinators of the Platform and principal investigator of the study.