The World Health Organization warned today that there is evidence that people infected with Covid-19 could be re-infected with a mutated strain of the new coronavirus.
In a press conference she gave, Dr. Sumia Swaminathan, the WHO's chief scientist, said: “We are now receiving reports of people being re-infected with a new variant of the virus. “There have been some early reports from South Africa that suggest that people who have been infected before may be infected again.”
Earlier this week, a small study in South Africa showed that the AstraZeneca and Oxford University vaccine may not adequately protect against the new coronavirus variant first detected in that country, called B1351 or 501YV2. . Swaminathan stressed, however, that “there is clear protection against the serious illness leading to hospitalization and death,” adding that “there are now reports that if you have been vaccinated and become infected, the viral load is much lower.”
In critical condition a patient in France
In France, doctors are trying to keep alive a patient who became infected with the South African variant of the new coronavirus four months after recovering from Covid-19. “This case underscores the fact that the variant (s.s. of South Africa) may be responsible for severe re-infection after a first, mild infection” with the “classic” strain of SARS-CoV-2, French researchers said. who studied the case and described it in their article in the scientific review Clinical Infectious Diseases.
“As far as we know, this is the first description of a re-infection with the South African variant causing severe Covid-19, four months after a first, mild infection,” they added.
The patient is a 58-year-old man with asthma who initially tested positive for Covid-19 in September when he went to his doctor because he had a fever and shortness of breath. The symptoms persisted for only a few days and in December the man underwent a negative test twice.
However, in January he was admitted to hospital and re-diagnosed with Covid-19, this time with the South African variant. His condition worsened and he needed to be intubated. When the authors of the article gave it for publication, he was hospitalized in critical condition.
Cases of re-infection with variants of SARS-CoV-2 from Britain, Brazil and South Africa have been reported at other times, but usually the second time the symptoms are milder.
