Shao-Chung Cheng1, Yu-Long Fan Chiang2, Chia-Husn Huang3, Yuan-Nian Hsu4. 1. Division of Pulmonary Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, Sinwu Branch, Taoyuan General Hospital, Ministry of Health and Welfare, Taoyuan, Taiwan. 2. Department of Internal Medicine, Sinwu Branch, Taoyuan General Hospital, Ministry of Health and Welfare, Taoyuan, Taiwan. 3. Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Department of Internal Medicine, Sinwu Branch, Taoyuan General Hospital, Ministry of Health and Welfare, Taoyuan, Taiwan. 4. Department of Family Medicine, Taoyuan General Hospital, Ministry of Health and Welfare, Taoyuan, Taiwan. Electronic address: kingjen@mail.tygh.gov.tw.
We would like to thank Joob B. et al. for showing their interest in our article “First case of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pneumonia in Taiwan” and sharing their idea selflessly on our work. We agreed with Joob B. et al. that most of the cases in the reported literatures, including ours and cases in Thailand, had recovered without mortality. Indeed, it is unknown whether the patient has recovered by herself or by the supportive treatment in the hospital. Joob B. et al. highlighted that COVID-19 cases might still had undetected viral shedding and still were infectious. In our case, the patient had negative results from sputum and throat for 3 times between illness day 17–23 by rRT-PCR. The same results were also seen from stool and urine specimen on day 25. Therefore, we believed she had been recovered, and did not have further examination arranged. Nonetheless, there were cases reported from China that patient had prolonged SARS-CoV-2 shedding. We appreciated Joob B et al. again helping the readers to understand more comprehensive picture of this disease.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors have no conflicts of interest relevant to this article.