from the journal I read patients who underwent more than one virological test for MERS-CoV at least

1 day apart were included in the analysis. Retesting was done non-systematically using respiratory
samples. then the types of respiratory specimens collected from patients and contacts are sputum
samples, nasal and throat swabs, nasopharyngeal swabs, and endotracheal aspiration samples. In
this journal the Kaplan-Meier method is used to calculate the time to repeat the negative MERS-CoV
RT-PCR test. this journaling requires systematic and prospective research to delineate further MERS-
CoV kinetics, not only in respiratory secretions but also in other body fluids (blood, urine, and feces)
so that patients with more severe disease may have been selected for retesting rather than those
who have mild illness.

The results of this study were that the majority of samples from the MERS-CoV case were
aspiration / tracheal phlegm (p = 0,0006) and most of the samples from contact were nasal and
throat swabs (p = 0,0002). The Kaplan-Meier curve shows that contact clears the virus at a much
earlier time than the patient (Figure 1). On day 12, 30% of contacts and 76% of cases were still
positive for MERS-CoV by PCR.