A 33-year-old man in Hong Kong could be the first reinfection case shown, Hong Kong researchers said.
The boy diagnosed with COVID-19 on March 26, hospitalized and recovered, tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 on August 15, and the total genome sequencing of viral isolates in any of the episodes indicated that they belonged to other clades, he reported. Kwok-Yung Yuen, MD, of the University of Hong Kong, and his colleagues in a manuscript who said he had been accepted for publication in Clinical Infectious Diseases, but not yet published.
This is an almost impregnable proof that the type was inflamed for a moment, and some other indication, far from definitive, that Immunity to SARS-CoV-2 would possibly not last long.
Interestingly, the patient was asymptomatic at the time of his time of infection, the authors said.
Reinfection has been suspected in some previous cases of COVID-19, but was never documented. Many experts believe that what gave the impression of being a reinfection was only a prolonged infection. But these researchers may not be clearer:
“We reported the first case of COVID-19 reinfection,” they wrote. “Epidemiological, clinical, serological and genomic analyses showed that the patient had a re-infection of persistent viral excretion of the first infection. “
In fact, the total sequencing of the genome revealed that the first maximum of the viral genome was very similar to SARS-CoV-2 strains from the United States or England collected in March/April and that the maximum moment of the viral genome was very similar to the strains of Switzerland and England in July/August. There were 24 nucleotide differences suggesting other strains.
Other evidence the authors presented that the patient had an acute infection in August was their upper point of C-reactive protein and “a higher viral load with progressive decline. “They also highlighted the long period (142 days) between infections, claiming that past studies had shown that viral RNA was undetectable one month after the onset of symptoms and that prolonged viral loss had not been documented until 104 days after infection.
“I hope that if reinfection has been documented, this is a rare or rare event,” Peter Hotez, MD, PhD, told MedPage Today at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, who was not interested in the investigation. “So far, this turns out to be the case, but we’re still only a few months away from this pandemic. “
Matthew Spinelli, MD, of the University of California, San Francisco, said it was a vital but not surprising study, because other people re-infect with seasonal coronaviruses that cause the cold.
“We saw what we expected,” he told MedPage Today Spinelli, who was not interested in the investigation. “It’s smart that I haven’t had any symptoms at the time. . . This shows some degree of immunity, but not enough to save you is an asymptomatic infection. “
Yuen and his colleagues reported that the guy had a fever and a deep, productive cough in the March episode, when he tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. He was released on April 14 after two negative SARS-CoV-2 tests, taken one day apart.
But in August, the boy was returning from Spain to Hong Kong across the UK and tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 re-entry at Hong Kong Airport. He was hospitalized, but remained asymptomatic and feverish. The only laboratory abnormalities were hypokalaemia and a slight increase in PCR, which reduced hospitalization. The patient’s SARS-CoV-2 load was reduced to hospitalization, based on serial PCR tests.
Ten days after the first onset and one day after the start, the patient tested negative for IgG against SARS-CoV-2. Only serum samples taken on day five after the time of hospitalization tested positive for IgG.
“Our effects recommend that SARS-CoV-2 may persist in the global human population as is the case with other human coronaviruses related to the unusual cold, even if patients have acquired immunity to an herbal infection,” a press release emailed. through HKU Med.
When asked about the progression implications of the COVID-19 vaccine, Spinelli noted that no vaccine that opposes a respiratory virus like this is 100 percent effective, as is the flu vaccine, which reduces the onset of infections and the severity of the disease. , but only to a certain extent.
“The fact that at the time the infection was much less severe is what we would expect with a vaccine. Let’s hope a vaccine leads to more stringent immunity,” he said.
Limitations of knowledge come from the fact that there was only one serum standard on file for serological verification, and a negative antibody verification does not rule out the option that the patient developed antibodies in the early phase of the first episode, as patients they would not possibly expand an antibody reaction for 10 days.
Corporate and research reporting director Kristina Fiore contributed to this story.
Molly Walker is deputy editor-in-chief, covering infectious diseases for MedPage Today and passionate about evidence, knowledge and public health.
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