Recovered patients in Singapore can't spread Covid-19, assures centre

National Centre for Infectious Diseases executive director Leo Yee Sin said doctors check if the patient is still releasing live virus and thus remain contagious. - ST

SINGAPORE (The Straits Times/ANN): The 62 Covid-19 patients who have been discharged here no longer have the virus in them and cannot pass the infection on to others, experts at the National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID) assured.

Stories have surfaced in China that one in seven patients who has recovered is still infectious.

But they said the situation in Singapore is very different

Professor Leo Yee Sin, executive director of NCID, said doctors monitor virus-shedding in patients' respiratory tract - in other words, they check if the patient is still releasing live virus and thus remains contagious.

This is done by taking nasal or throat swabs.

Virus-shedding stops if the patient no longer has the virus in him.

"Patients are only discharged when they have clinically recovered and molecular testing indicates they have stopped shedding the virus," she said. - The Straits Times/Asia News Network