Doctors warn of coronavirus relapse cases

South Korea has identified a growing number of people who make an apparent recovery from COVID-19 only to test positive again.

South Korean police patrol the streets of Seoul. Picture: AP

South Korea has identified a growing number of people who make an apparent recovery from the coronavirus only to test positive again, raising fears that the virus is capable of striking the same person more than once.

The Korea Centres for Disease Control and Prevention reported 124 “relapsed” cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday, an ­increase of eight from the day ­before.

Doctors are urgently investi­gating whether mutations in the virus can prevent patients from ­acquiring an immunity.

Among the 460,000 people around the world thought to have recovered from the virus so far, the number of relapsed patients in South Korea is small, and doctors warn that in the absence of systematic research, it is too early to jump to conclusions.

Most experts and health authorities are working on the assumption that those who have got over the virus will acquire a degree of immunity to it that will over time reduce contagion.

The relapses in South Korea underline how much remains ­unknown about the disease.  Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha acknowledged that “(of) those fully cured and released, many of them have been found to test positive a few days after”.

She emphasised that the reason for patients testing positive for the virus twice was still not fully known.

One explanation could be faulty testing.

The relapsed ­patients may have been found positive when in fact they had not yet been infected by the virus, or alternatively the second test may have been a false positive.

The Times