08-24-2020, 09:37 PM
First covid-19 reinfection documented in Hong Kong, researchers say
The 33-year-old man tested positive after returning from Europe, but showed no symptoms the second time round.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/20...hong-kong/
The study, by a team at the University of Hong Kong and accepted by the international medical journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, purports to be “the world’s first documentation” of a patient who recovered from covid-19 being reinfected. The fact that the man had no symptoms the second time suggests his immune system protected him from disease.
The findings have big potential implications for vaccine use, as well as policies based around the concept of herd immunity that presume those who recover from the virus are unlikely to be reinfected.
Robert Glatter, an emergency physician at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, said the research showed herd immunity from natural infection would be unlikely to eradicate the novel coronavirus. “The only safe and practical approach to achieve herd immunity is through vaccination," he said, although even those might not provide lifelong protection.
But immunologists also emphasized that the case was not a surprise, given what is already known about the response to the virus. “[T]his is a textbook example of how immunity should work,” Akiko Iwasaki, an immunology expert at Yale University, tweeted on Monday.
She noted the second infection was asymptomatic implying that the man’s immune response protected him from disease, although not reinfection, and calling its findings “no cause for alarm.”
The 33-year-old man, an unnamed IT worker from the city, was first hospitalized in late March after testing positive for covid-19. His symptoms included a fever and a cough.
The man was released from hospital in mid-April after testing negative for the virus and having no further symptoms. But after visiting Spain in August, he tested positive again upon returning to Hong Kong, despite appearing asymptomatic.
Physicians at first thought he might be a persistent carrier of the virus, the study’s authors write, but they sequenced the genome of his first and second infection to show the virus strains were different, indicating he had been reinfected.
The 33-year-old man tested positive after returning from Europe, but showed no symptoms the second time round.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/20...hong-kong/
The study, by a team at the University of Hong Kong and accepted by the international medical journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, purports to be “the world’s first documentation” of a patient who recovered from covid-19 being reinfected. The fact that the man had no symptoms the second time suggests his immune system protected him from disease.
The findings have big potential implications for vaccine use, as well as policies based around the concept of herd immunity that presume those who recover from the virus are unlikely to be reinfected.
Robert Glatter, an emergency physician at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, said the research showed herd immunity from natural infection would be unlikely to eradicate the novel coronavirus. “The only safe and practical approach to achieve herd immunity is through vaccination," he said, although even those might not provide lifelong protection.
But immunologists also emphasized that the case was not a surprise, given what is already known about the response to the virus. “[T]his is a textbook example of how immunity should work,” Akiko Iwasaki, an immunology expert at Yale University, tweeted on Monday.
She noted the second infection was asymptomatic implying that the man’s immune response protected him from disease, although not reinfection, and calling its findings “no cause for alarm.”
The 33-year-old man, an unnamed IT worker from the city, was first hospitalized in late March after testing positive for covid-19. His symptoms included a fever and a cough.
The man was released from hospital in mid-April after testing negative for the virus and having no further symptoms. But after visiting Spain in August, he tested positive again upon returning to Hong Kong, despite appearing asymptomatic.
Physicians at first thought he might be a persistent carrier of the virus, the study’s authors write, but they sequenced the genome of his first and second infection to show the virus strains were different, indicating he had been reinfected.