India's first Covid-19 patient contracts coronavirus again

It was on January 30, 2020 that the third year medical student from Wuhan university tested positive for coronavirus

India's first Covid-19 patient, a Malayali medical student at Wuhan in China, has again tested positive for the virus.

The woman, aged around 20, was initially tested Covid positive on January 30, soon after her return to Kerala from Wuhan, the epicenter of Covid outbreak.

She was planning to return to China but she again tested Covid positive. The Thrissur native is now under home quarantine as she is asymptomatic and has no health issues.

Thrissur District Medical Officer K J Reena said that she was found positive in an RT-PCR test conducted for traveling to Delhi. She had not yet received even the fist dose of Covid vaccine. While she had shown some symptoms during the first infection, this time she was showing no symptoms.

One of her family members told DH that since she was not having any symptoms, the reinfection could have gone unnoticed if she had not undergone the RT-PCR test as part of her Delhi travel.

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Health department sources said that the virus load in her could be very low this time. Her samples might be evaluated further.

During her hospital stay after being tested positive first time, she was not very worried as the fatality rate was low. She had even resumed her studies before being discharged and attended online classes, followed by online examinations.

Apart from this woman, several other medical students who came down from China in January 2020, had also got the infection. All the initial three Covid cases in the country were reported in Malayali students who returned from Wuhan. Though the rate of increase of Covid patients in Kerala was comparatively lower in the initial stages, the state started witnessing a surge following return of Malayalis from other states and countries. Covid cases in Kerala still continues to be on the higher side with TPR remaining around 10 percent.