Beijing, Mar 30 (IANS): Asymptomatic COVID-19 patients are as virulent and infective as symptomatic ones and those having no clinical symptoms but tested positive for new coronavirus can infect several healthy people, according to new studies.

Reported by Global Times, those silent virus carriers (asymptomatic patients) have been controversial regarding their infectivity but the news of a woman in Henan Province in China has further triggered public concerns".

The woman in Central China's Henan Province was confirmed to be infected with COVID-19 after coming into contact with an asymptomatic patient, who also got the virus from another asymptomatic patient.

"A recent study showed the infectivity of asymptomatic patients (having no clinical symptoms but testing positive for COVID-19) could be nearly the same as confirmed cases," the report said on Sunday.

Scientists with the Ningbo Center for Disease Control and Prevention in East China's Zhejiang Province found that 6.3 per cent of confirmed cases' close contacts were ultimately infected with the virus.

"The percentage for asymptomatic patients' close contacts was 4.4 per cent. Such a difference is of no statistical significance," the report mentioned.

Yang Zhanqiu, a Wuhan-based virologist, told the Global Times "that there may be an estimation of at least 200,000 virus varriers with no symptoms currently in China".

The asymptomatic patients have strong physical immunity or carry weak virus with less virulence.

According to Yang, this is why they don't show symptoms but still spread the virus in the early stage of infection.

Asymptomatic patients show no symptoms as the majority of them could be in the incubation period.

The number of infected cases has crossed 7 lakh globally, with nearly 34,000 deaths.