CDC wants isolation for asymptomatic patients down to 10 days
What you need to know:
- Initially, it recommended that people who test positive isolate until they had two negative swabs.
- But an updated guide now advises most people with active cases of the virus to isolate for 10 days after the symptoms begin and 24 hours after their fever has broken.
The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) wants the isolation period for asymptomatic Covid-19 patients reduced to 10 days.
Initially, it recommended that people who test positive isolate until they had two negative swabs for the coronavirus, but an updated guide now advises most people with active cases of the virus to isolate for 10 days after the symptoms begin and 24 hours after their fever has broken.
In a move that is likely to change countries’ strategies on the pandemic and ease individual patients’ agony, the public health agency said that for most persons with Covid-19, isolation and precautions can generally be discontinued 10 days after the onset of the symptoms and resolution of fever for at least 24 hours, without the use of fever-reducing medications, and with the improvement of other symptoms.
The CDC reached the decision after a series of studies showed that the concentration of SARS-CoV-2, which causes Covid-19, declined drastically in the upper respiratory system after the onset of symptoms.
“It was estimated that 88 per cent and 95 per cent of specimens from patients with compromised immunity no longer yielded replication-competent virus after 10 and 15 days, respectively, following symptom onset,” it said.
PEOPLE WITH SEVERE ILLNESS
However, it notes that a small number of people with severe illness may produce replication-competent virus after 10 days, which might require that the duration of isolation be extended for up to 20 days, but recommends that this be done in consultation with infection-control experts and virologists.
In another development, the centre said that now, six months after the pandemic emerged, there have been no confirmed cases of reinfection.
Kenya requires people to isolate for 14 days in designated facilities and in rare instances, at home, with monitoring by adherence to the Ministry of Health’s home-based isolation and care guidelines.
POTENTIALLY CONTAGIOUS
Under the management protocols, the Ministry of Health says that people with Covid-19 should be considered potentially contagious from two days before to 14 days following the onset.
A number of people who have tested positive for the virus, including Dr Amakove Wala, hope that the ministry will adopt the CDC recommendations.
“No need for retesting as a positive result indicates viral RNA shedding rather than infectious particles. Let me hope MoH adapts this. This isolation is not for the faint-hearted,” Dr Wala said on her social media pages.
Another patient, Ms Doris Amadala told the Nation that she had been in isolation in Eldoret for 18 days despite having no symptoms.
