COVID-19: Questions about Asymptomatic Transmission of the Coronavirus. The rate of transmission of coronavirus among people is still a question experts are working on day and night to explain.
Experts have suggested that it’s very rare for asymptomatic carriers to transmit the disease to another person. This was shown in a little controlled observational study carried out.
Also Read: Depression – How to Overcome and Recover from it
Previous studies have explained that symptomatic people are excellent transmitters of infectious disease. Some have also suggested that it can be transmitted before it develops.
Asymptomatic patients, these are the patients who have shown no symptoms yet test positive of the virus. It’s not clear the number of transmissions done by these patients.
This is as a result of a thorough contact tracing done in some countries where some of the contacts tested positive with the symptoms while others tested positive with no symptoms.
From the observations, the rate of transmission of the virus by those who tested positive for the virus with no symptoms was rare which raises the question if this is true around the world.
With the lockdown procedure that reduced and is still reducing the number of infected people has raised some questions about the rate of transmission of asymptomatic patients.
Experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) have stressed that the transmission of asymptomatic is not possible. But researchers have a different opinion as there is no data which WHO based their finding on.
An Expert on Health Emergencies Programme explained that He was convinced that there are numerous cases of asymptomatic transmission. The issue was knowing the rate of transmission and how much it has gone.
He stressed that there are three (3) different categories:
1. Those patients who don’t develop any symptoms (asymptomatic)
2. Patients that tests positive when they don’t have any symptoms (pre-symptomatic).
3. Those patients that have mild or atypical symptoms and don’t realise they have the virus.
The observational studies, the asymptomatic contacts were traced. It was found that the had fewer infections than the other cases of which the people had symptoms.
it was based on this study that WHO started that the asymptomatically-infected patients have a low probability of transmitting the virus as compared to those who had the symptoms
In Europe, a group of experts are constantly studying samples of different populations. Their study observed that those who tested positive of the virus showed symptoms previously or at the time of research.
They were referred to as high-risk patients.
Furthermore, they explained that patients can have a detectable amount of coronavirus in their body about 3-5 days before any signs and symptoms develop. They can transmit the virus during this incubation period.
The highest risk transmission occurs a day before the symptoms appear on the patients.
Patients with the pre-symptomatic transmission have an important impact on the transmission of the virus. The observational study showed that they could transmit the virus while pre-symptomatic.
And also, patients without symptoms can also transmit the virus, though present research suggests that patients with symptoms are of higher risk.
finally, testing positive for coronavirus can’t quantify the amount of virus in the person’s system. This is called the viral load.
Also Read: The Holy Book on Coronavirus: What does the Scripture say concerning COVID-19?
Experts have stressed that the major mode of transmission of coronavirus is through droplets from coughing or sneezing.
COVID-19: Questions about Asymptomatic Transmission of the Coronavirus.
Leave a Reply