Assessing the effects of exposure to a SARS-CoV-2 re-positive patient in healthcare personnel
- PDF / 677,502 Bytes
- 4 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 87 Downloads / 159 Views
BMC Research Notes Open Access
RESEARCH NOTE
Assessing the effects of exposure to a SARS‑CoV‑2 re‑positive patient in healthcare personnel Yoshihiko Ogawa1,2* , Koji Nishida2,3, Iwao Gohma2,3, Kei Kasahara4 and Hisakazu Yano5
Abstract Objective: To evaluate whether patients with COVID-19 who have tested re-positive with the PCR test for the SARSCoV-2 virus are infectious is a challenge in the current circumstances. A follow-up survey was conducted with healthcare personnel (HCP) who were exposed to a patient whose PCR test results for SARS-CoV-2 were re-positive 18 days after the initial confirmation of negative PCR results. Results: We studied a total of 15 HCP who had contact exposures (15/15) and aerosol exposures (7/15). None of them tested positive for IgG against SARS-CoV-2 on blood examination. None of them had any symptoms during 10 days of active isolation. All PCR tests conducted using the nasopharyngeal swabs collected from the HCP on day 10 were negative. No apparent infection was found in any of the HCP who had contact exposure with and/or aerosol exposure to the patient whose PCR test results for SARS-CoV-2 were re-positive 18 days after the initial confirmation of negative results of PCR tests for SARS-CoV-2. Clinical trial: Trial Registration: No. 170, approved June 10th, 2020 by the ethics committee of Sakai City Medical Center. Keywords: SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19, Healthcare personnel, PCR re-positive Introduction The spread of COVID-19 is still on-going in various regions. However, a new problem in regions where the epidemic has already been recognized is that patients are testing positive with the PCR test after the post-treatment results were negative. In our hospital, another problem regarding COVID19 patients is that it is difficult to find a transfer destination for the patients in whom management required physical disposal of protective equipment. This primarily occurs after long-term management in intensive care units, because especially in long-term care facilities, the *Correspondence: [email protected] 1 Department of Infectious Diseases, Sakai City Medical Center, Ebaraji 1‑1‑1, Sakai, Osaka, Japan Full list of author information is available at the end of the article
medical protective equipment is insufficient. Thus, we created a policy that for patients whose sputum and/or nasopharyngeal PCR test results for SARS-CoV-2 were negative when measured twice separately over 24 h, we stopped the precautions against aerosol transmission. If the PCR test results were negative again after 72 more hours, we stopped the contact precautions for COVID-19 transmission as well. This “72 more hours” is based on the report that SARS-CoV-2 has been detected for up to 72 h after application to surfaces such as plastic and stainless steel [1]. A patient (an 81-year-old woman) who met the abovementioned criteria was waiting for rehabilitation transfer; however, she presented with worsening heart failure, due to which we determined that intensive care was required. Due to the sudden change in symp
Data Loading...
