• Bisakh Bhattacharya, Rohit Kumar, Ved Prakash Meena, Manish Soneja, Amit Singh, Rojaleen Das, Ashit Xess, Nazneen Arif, Saurabh Vig, Vandana Rastogi, Pavan Tiwari, Sushma Bhatnagar, Anant Mohan, Naveet Wig, and Lalit Dar.
• Department of Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Medicine Office, 3rd floor, Teaching block, AIIMS, New Delhi, India.
• Pathog Dis. 2021 Jan 9; 79 (1).

Backgrounddespite being in the 5th month of pandemic, knowledge with respect to viral dynamics, infectivity and RT-PCR positivity continues to evolve.Aimto analyse the SARS CoV-2 nucleic acid RT-PCR profiles in COVID-19 patients.Designit was a retrospective, observational study conducted at COVID facilities under AIIMS, New Delhi.Methodspatients admitted with laboratory confirmed COVID-19 were eligible for enrolment. Patients with incomplete details, or only single PCR tests were excluded. Data regarding demographic details, comorbidities, treatment received and results of SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR performed on nasopharyngeal and oropharyngeal swabs, collected at different time points, was retrieved from the hospital records.Resultsa total of 298 patients were included, majority were males (75·8%) with mean age of 39·07 years (0·6-88 years). The mean duration from symptom onset to first positive RT-PCR was 4·7 days (SD 3·67), while that of symptom onset to last positive test was 17·83 days (SD 6·22). Proportions of positive RT-PCR tests were 100%, 49%, 24%, 8·7% and 20·6% in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and >4 weeks of illness. A total of 12 symptomatic patients had prolonged positive test results even after 3 weeks of symptom onset. Age > = 60 years was associated with prolonged RT-PCR positivity (statistically significant).Conclusionthis study showed that the average period of PCR positivity is more than 2 weeks in COVID-19 patients; elderly patients have prolonged duration of RT-PCR positivity and requires further follow up.© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of FEMS.

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