She said doctors will now have to base someone’s readiness for discharge on the time they spend in treatment and improvement in symptoms for instance if someone has been in isolation for ten days and they haven’t shown symptoms of a fever in the last 24 hours.
The Ministry of Health has revised its protocols for people recovering
from COVID-19 and need discharge from the different treatment facilities.
While people who were previously isolated for treatment would remain in hospital, some for longer than three weeks awaiting a negative test, Health Minister Dr Jane Ruth Aceng has revealed they no longer require a person to first test negative for the virus before being released. She said one can be released as long as they are asymptomatic or have mild
symptoms of the disease.
She said doctors will now have to base someone’s readiness
for discharge on the time they spend in treatment and improvement on symptoms, for instance, if someone has been in isolation for ten days and they haven’t
shown symptoms of a fever in the last 24 hours.
When it comes to those that present with a serious disease
requiring treatment with oxygen or intensive care unit services, the minister
says samples for PCR test will be taken when the patient is declared clinically
stable, have spent at least 24 hours without a fever and have been in isolation
for at least 10 days after onset of
symptoms.
“If a PCR is positive at day 10, then health workers will do
another test on the fifteenth day. If they test negative then they can go home,
but if the test comes out positive again, then they can be discharged at day 20
without an additional test.”
This change comes with the increase in community
transmission of infection whereby more than a hundred new cases are confirmed
every day.
Results from tests done on Wednesday show that 158 people tested
positive bringing the cumulative number of confirmed cases in the country to
8,287. Of these, 4430 have recovered and 75 have succumbed.
