8 out of the total 187 persons who have tested positive for coronavirus in the tiny island nation of the Faroe Islands have tested positive again four to six weeks after the initial positive test. 7 of the 8 had long been regarded as recovered after an infection with relatively mild symptoms
Article from Danish public broadcaster DR here, but only in Danish unfortunately.
The Faroe Islands (an autonomous part of Denmark situated in the middle of the North Atlantic) has had one of the most comprehensive testing programmes in the world. An epidemic in the country’s vitally important salmon farming industry about 10 years ago had left the nation of some 48,000 people with a ready and expansive testing capacity that could easily be converted into corona virus testing.
This has landed the Faroes a world championship in testing with more than 140 tests conducted pr 1,000 inhabitants. Together with the easier task of tracing possible infections in a small population and the ability to cut off almost all traffic to and from the islands, this has enabled the local government to bring the epidemic under near total control with only 6 active cases remaining. It is also presumed that there is close to no undetected infections. Only nine of the country’s 187 cases have not been clearly traceable back to another known case, says the chief medical executive Lars Fodgaard Møller.
This also means that the 8 re-positive patients are in all likelyhood not re-infected. Instead it’s an safe conclusion, that virus has remained in their bodies after they recovered from the initial infection, either in an active or inactive/dead form in amounts large enough to trigger a new positive test.
There is no information on whether the 8 re-positive tested persons are considered to be still infectious or not.