World’s First Case Of Covid-19 Reinfection Reported

People had doubts on re-infection of Coronavirus and now, it seems to be true.

According to reports, a man contracted the infection for a second time after recovering from an initial bout in April and the scientists say that this is the first case confirming that reinfection may occur within a few months.

The 33-year-old IT worker was found to have had the SARS-CoV-2 infection during screening at the airport while he was returning to Hong Kong from Europe. The scientists at Hong Kong used genomic sequence analysis and confirmed that he was infected by two different strains both the times.

Surprisingly, the man did not develop any symptoms from his second infection, through which it can be inferred “subsequent infections may be milder,” researchers said.

In a paper accepted for publication in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, the researchers said that “our findings suggest that SARS-oV-2 may persist in humans.” The findings also suggest that SARS-CoV-2 is reminiscent of the coronaviruses that cause common cold and may continue to circulate “even if patients have acquired immunity through infection or via vaccination.”

In case of patients who tested positive for many weeks even after the symptoms were resolved, scientists could not understand whether these cases reflect lingering traces of the virus or a re-infection or a completely new infection.

At the same time, the researchers also fear that finding Covid-19 survivors who have been reinfected with SARS-CoV-2, if they don’t show any symptom, say researchers, adding that the memory immune response could have prevented any symptomatic disease during the second infection.

Now, the problem is that a reinfected person may still spread SARS-CoVV-2 virus to someone who hasn’t been previously exposed, researchers say.