Anti-pandemic committee offers glimpse into COVID-19 recovery evaluation

AMMAN — Spokesperson for the National Anti-Pandemic Committee Nathir Obaidat on Monday reviewed the criteria used to determine whether a patient has recovered from COVID-19 and can be released from the hospital.

These criteria are “completely different” from those used for quarantined individuals, he noted.

Obaidat told the Jordan News Agency, Petra that after a patient no longer shows any symptoms of COVID-19, two PCR (polymerase chain reaction) laboratory tests are conducted three days apart from each other.

If the results of both tests come back negative, meaning that the virus was not detected in the sample, the patient will be subjected to a high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT) image of the chest, he said.

The spokesperson noted that if the image shows that the patient has no clear signs of pneumonia, the patient is considered recovered and is released from the hospital after their recovery is announced.

Regarding the use of the drug "hydroxychloroquine" to treat patients infected with the coronavirus, Obaidat confirmed that Jordanian hospitals have begun employing this drug through a specific treatment protocol following a comprehensive clinical study of patients’ health conditions and determining that they can receive the drug.

He said that these studies are being conducted under the supervision of a group of experts at the University of Jordan and the Jordan University of Science and Technology, as well as specialists from the Ministry of Health and the Royal Medical Services, as they are the only entities authorised to administer the drug for the treatment of COVID-19.