By Sarah Hannan Covid-19 patients, once recovered, will not be re-infected, Director General of Health Services (DGHS) Dr. Anil Jasinghe revealed. Dr. Jasinghe made this statement when The Morning inquired about a 67-year-old person who recovered from Covid-19, tested positive for Covid-19 when he was admitted to the National Hospital of Sri Lanka (NHSL) following a heart attack on 30 April. A resident from Ja-Ela, the person was admitted to the National Institute of Infectious Diseases (IDH) on 17 March after contracting Covid-19 and was treated for a period of one month and discharged on 17 April. The recovered person returned home and had observed a further 14 days of self-isolation as instructed by the hospital authorities. He experienced a heart attack on 30 April, following which he was admitted to NHSL. During the admission process, he had alerted the hospital staff that he was a Covid-19 recoveree and presented the previous reports. “We subjected him to a PCR (polymerase chain reaction) test and the test readings returned positive. We made arrangements to transfer him to IDH after that,” an NHSL spokesperson said. Dr. Jasinghe explained: “The public should not be alarmed to hear that a Covid-19 recoveree tested positive. Even after a person recovers from the virus, there will be residual virus fragments. When a PCR test is conducted, it will not be able to distinguish between genetic material (RNA and DNA) from an infectious virus and the ‘dead’ virus fragments.” The patient is at present admitted at IDH and will be placed under observation with different tests carried out to determine whether the virus remains inactive.