Krishna, an 80 year old woman, despite having several symptoms similar to COVID-19, her test repeatedly came negative for four times. The doctor and her family were left in a fix and soon their worry turned into surprise as they discovered that she had already been recovered from the coronavirus, after testing her for COVID antibodies.

On 23rd June, Krishna, a resident of Malviya Nagar, was taken to the AIIMS emergency ward by the family after she suffered a seizure. Her son Ashok Kumar, 35 years, a driver said that she had stopped eating so was on a liquid diet. In the last 15 days, she was feeling very weak but they were scared to take her to any hospital fearing the coronavirus.

Doctors found that she had a high total leucocyte (white blood cells) count. They did a chest x-ray which suggested atypical pneumonia — a typical symptom associated with COVID patients. She was tested via RT-PCR test on 25th June but the report came negative. Successively, three more tests were done on 29th June, 2nd July and 7th July as the symptoms were not correlating with the reports as all were negative.

Dr Vijay Kumar Gurjar, assistant professor, department of geriatric medicine, AIIMS, said that clinically many symptoms of Krishna were pointing towards COVID-19. The CECT chest x-ray was indicative of COVID infection. In many cases, the infection is not confirmed in one test, so they decided to do repeat testing. Also simultaneously, they started treating her as a COVID-19 patient.

Doctors started functioning for her discharge as her condition improved. On 6th July, they performed the SARS-CoV2T test to check for COVID antibodies. The test revealed an antibody figure more than 10, showing that she has developed an enough immunity level.

Dr Jugal Kishore, director, head of the department of community medicine, at Vardhman Mahavir Medical College and Safdarjung Hospital, said regarding this case, it seems that she has developed a decent number of antibodies. The incubation period of coronavirus is 0-27 days, hence there are high chances that she might have contracted the disease earlier and was left untreated.

Source: The Indian Express