The first Covid-19 patient of Bengal tested negative in a repeat test on Sunday, state health department officials said.

The 18-year-old student, who had tested positive for the first time two days after returning from the UK on March 15, will be discharged from the Infectious Diseases and Beleghata General Hospital if another test within 48 hours gives a negative result, too.

The discharge policy for novel coronavirus patients issued by the health ministry says a patient “shall be discharged only after evidence of chest radiographic clearance and viral clearance in respiratory samples after two specimens test negative for nCOV”.

A doctor involved in treating Covid-19 patients said that once a patient was discharged, she/he could lead a normal life. “Post-discharge, one can even visit market. Lockdown restrictions will apply to the patient like anyone else but no home quarantine rule will be applicable to him or her.

“The person, however, may be advised to wear a mask for a few days while going out,” the doctor said.

The student, a resident of a housing complex off EM Bypass, had tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, at the Beleghata hospital four times.

“He was already at the hospital when he first tested positive on March 17. After that he tested positive thrice,” a health department official said.

“Samples were again collected on Saturday. The report arrived on Sunday and it was negative.”

The teenager’s parents — his mother is a bureaucrat with the state government and father a doctor — are in the quarantine facility set up by the state government on the New Town campus of Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute (CNCI). Neither has tested positive for the virus.

Officials said samples of eight patients admitted at the Beleghata hospital, including those of the teenager, were sent for tests on Saturday. All but one were positive.

Among the eight are a 22-year-old youth from south Calcutta, who tested positive for the first time on March 19, days after returning from the UK, and his parents and a help of the family. The parents and the help tested positive on March 22 and are being treated at the Beleghata hospital.

Also among the eight who were tested on Saturday was a 23-year-old woman from Habra in South 24-Parganas, who had first tested positive after returning from Scotland. She was sent to the Beleghata hospital directly from the airport after airport officials saw her coughing and she said she was feeling feverish. A 58-year-old man who had returned from Egypt and a 55-year-old woman back from the UK were also tested.