Cured patients quarantined at coronavirus epicentre

China is rounding up recovered patients and returning them to quarantine centres in the epicentre of coronavirus amid new fears.

Chinese patients who have recovered from the coronavirus are being sent back into quarantine centres, new reports have revealed.

China’s authorities made the decision on Saturday, February 22, after some cured patients were discharged from hospitals but then tested positive again to coronavirus.

Wuhan’s coronavirus treatment and control command centre is now sending cured patients back into quarantine centres for a further 14 days.

A quarantine centre in China. Cured patients are being sent back to these centres amid fears that they can still be carrying the coronavirus. Picture: AFP

Zhao Jianping, a doctor heading a team working in Hubei, has seen first hand cases where the patient seems cured and tested negative, but days later was still found to be carrying the potentially deadly virus.

“This is dangerous,” Zhao told the Southern People Weekly magazine. “Where do you put those patients? You cannot send them home, because they might infect others, but you cannot put them in hospital because resources are stretched.”

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This exhibition centre has been converted into a hospital in Wuhan in China's central Hubei province. Picture: AFP

In the southwestern city of Chengdu, a patient initially discharged on February 10, after meeting the standard for having recovered, was readmitted to hospital nine days later when they tested positive again during a check-up.

In another case in Changde, a city in Hunan province in central China, a woman tested positive on February 9, five days after she was released from quarantine at a local hospital having tested negative in two previous laboratory tests.

Meanwhile, in the southern city of Guangzhou, the coronavirus was found in stool samples from a small number of discharged patients, South Metropolitan Daily reported on Saturday.

A Chinese man who is a member of the neighbourhood committee centre and security guards wear protective masks as they control entry and exit from a residential area in Beijing, China. Picture: Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

In China, patients can be discharged if they meet four criteria: body temperature returning to normal for more than three days, respiratory symptoms improving significantly, chest CAT imaging showing significant improvement in the lungs, and negative results in two nucleic acid tests at least one day apart.

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Paramedics wearing personal protective equipment carry a stretcher off an ambulance at North Point district in Hong Kong, China. Picture: Anthony Kwan/Getty Images

The decision to quarantine patients comes just a day after a scary new revelation of the virus, where a Chinese man didn’t show symptoms until 27 days after coming into contact with an infected person.

This could prove a devastating blow to the world if the virus’s incubation period is longer than the presumed 14 days.