The World Health Organization (WHO) on Thursday recommended a new guide to testing and quarantine patients considering the high level of circulation of SARS-COV-2, especially Omicron variants.
The health body says that the duration of quarantine for people exposed to Koronavirus can now be shortened, say those who test negatives can now end the quarantine after seven days, not 14 before.
Where testing to shorten quarantine is not possible, quarantine can end after day 10 without testing if the contacts have no symptoms, the agency said in the new interim guidance.
It tells that the risk of post-quarantine transmission for 10 quarantine days (based on pre-omicron data) is estimated at around 1%, with an upper limit of around 10%.
It also states that patient contacts that have just been vaccinated can be considered a lower priority.
But around 90 days vaccination, because the protection is reduced against infection after the primary series and limited follow-up data for the dose of booster, the contact must be considered the same as not vaccinated contacts.
For Covid-19 patients, it was said that countries could consider shortening the quarantine period to seven days with the addition of PCR or AG-RDT provided by qualified personnel. “Who does not currently recommend the test managed by himself to shorten quarantine.”
