CORONAVIRUS | The American woman who was confirmed positive for Covid-19, is showing positive signs of recovery from the disease.

Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the 83-year-old woman, who is the 22nd case in Malaysia, was still being monitored in a hospital for a slight cough.

“After more than 72 hours of treatment, the patient is showing significant improvement […] thus, the Covid-19 tests were done twice, 24 hours apart.

"Both retests have shown negative results and the retests were conducted to ensure the patient has fully recovered with negative Covid-19 infection results,” he said in a statement today.

The American woman was detected with symptoms after walking through the thermal scanner upon arrival at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport and was then referred to Sungai Buloh Hospital. The clinical examination and chest X-ray confirmed she had pneumonia and was admitted to the isolation ward at the hospital.

Noor Hisham said: "The oropharyngeal and nasopharyngeal clinal samples were taken for investigation. Both samples were tested twice at the Institute of Medical Research (IMR) and found to be positive for Covid-19 on Feb 15.”

“The patient was started on antiviral (lopinavir/Ritonavir) treatment and supplemental oxygen for her symptoms,” he added.

He said the latest study on Covid-19 found that almost 80 percent of patients were reported to have mild symptoms and there were no specific treatments for the disease.

Most of the patients only required symptomatic treatment such as fever, cough and cold, and isolation of the patients is required to prevent infection to other individuals, he said.

This is because, in most of the confirmed cases, the body's immune system will begin to develop antibodies towards the virus.

"However, there are groups of people who are immunocompromised or with lower immunity such as senior citizens, whereby Covid-19 infection could cause severe complications and require antiviral treatment,” he said.

Noor Hisham said the retest would be performed on all patients who were positive for Covid-19 once they were showing positive signs of recovery from the symptoms.

“This is to ensure the patients are fully recovered and free from the Covid-19 virus. Only then they will be allowed to return home with no risk of infecting other individuals,” he added. - Bernama