Duration and key determinants of infectious virus shedding in hospitalized patients with coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19)
- PMID: 33431879
- PMCID: PMC7801729
- DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-20568-4
Duration and key determinants of infectious virus shedding in hospitalized patients with coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19)
Abstract
Key questions in COVID-19 are the duration and determinants of infectious virus shedding. Here, we report that infectious virus shedding is detected by virus cultures in 23 of the 129 patients (17.8%) hospitalized with COVID-19. The median duration of shedding infectious virus is 8 days post onset of symptoms (IQR 5-11) and drops below 5% after 15.2 days post onset of symptoms (95% confidence interval (CI) 13.4-17.2). Multivariate analyses identify viral loads above 7 log10 RNA copies/mL (odds ratio [OR] of 14.7 (CI 3.57-58.1; p < 0.001) as independently associated with isolation of infectious SARS-CoV-2 from the respiratory tract. A serum neutralizing antibody titre of at least 1:20 (OR of 0.01 (CI 0.003-0.08; p < 0.001) is independently associated with non-infectious SARS-CoV-2. We conclude that quantitative viral RNA load assays and serological assays could be used in test-based strategies to discontinue or de-escalate infection prevention and control precautions.
Conflict of interest statement
The authors declare no competing interests.
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Comment in
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Infectious SARS-CoV-2 is rarely present in the nasopharynx samples collected from Swedish hospitalized critically ill COVID-19 patients.Ir J Med Sci. 2023 Feb;192(1):227-229. doi: 10.1007/s11845-022-02961-8. Epub 2022 Mar 7. Ir J Med Sci. 2023. PMID: 35257294 Free PMC article. No abstract available.
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