FULLY recovered and discharged Covid-19 patients to suffer a relapse remains low.
Yet health officials continue to impress upon them the need to practise social distancing, personal hygiene as well as avoid public gatherings.
“They can be infected again, although they’ve tested negative twice in more than 24 hours.
“… sometimes there are not enough antibodies, (meaning) there is antibody, but insufficient if they are infected again, the antibody is not protective yet,” Ministry of Health director-general Datuk Seri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah told Bernama.
To date, 1,995 patients have recovered and discharged.
Dr Noor Hisham said the ministry would always monitor the condition of patients declared free of the virus and carry out follow-up treatment to ensure that infection cases did not recur.
“The percentage of re-infection is probably not high, so we hope they take action to prevent from being infected,” he said.
Dr Noor Hisham also said the ministry was studying and identifying the effectiveness of several test kits in terms of getting fast and accurate test results.
“We are in the process of evaluating and verifying the antigen rapid test kit, so with our occasional assessments we hope to be able to identify a test kit that’s accurate and reliable.
“If we can carry out a test in half an hour or one hour, that would be the best. But so far we have not found an effective and highly accurate rapid test kit,” he said.
Dr Noor Hisham said the ministry would conduct clinical trials on the test kits from South Korea soon to ensure the effectiveness of the equipment.
