What we know about COVID-19 reinfection from other illnesses

Cases of reinfection of COVID-19 patients occur worldwide, but experts say it is unclear whether the virus will become the majority of the disease and will not become more severe with a second infection.

“So far, these cases appear to be very rare, but not so surprising,” said David Hirschwerk, an infectious disease expert at Hofstra University’s Zucker School of Medicine.

Hirschwerk said health experts know that people can re-infect from other seasonal coronaviruses, even though they initially developed some immunity.

“”[Immunity] It certainly doesn’t last for anyone’s life, “Hirschwerk told Post.

So far, of the more than 37 million people worldwide infected with the virus, only a handful of cases of reinfection have been recorded.

Dr. Nicole Iovin, an infectious disease expert at UF HEALTH, said:

Some may have experienced the symptoms again a few months later, but they did not seek treatment or their doctors do not have clinical specimens to prove that it was a second infection, Said Iovin.

“We need isolates from the patient, and we can sequence or fingerprint them to make sure they are really different strains,” she said.

As a result, there are far fewer cases of reinfection, and it is still unclear if they are in between.

Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, said cases of reinfection are extremely rare and there are several viruses that are frequently published in medical journals.

“Some viruses can cause reinfection, but they are generally very rare,” Schaffner said.

For example, people can get sick again with measles and chickenpox, but “it’s not a common event,” he said.

“One of the truths about measles is that the antibodies produced are the dominant way the body fights the virus and stays with you for the rest of your life,” he said.

In most cases, immunity is often lifelong, as neither measles nor chickenpox mutate immediately.

According to experts, COVID-19 is genetically fairly stable, but it’s too early to say where it is between measles and the flu, where four strains may be circulating at any time. ..

“”[Flu] It’s a very sophisticated virus that can mutate so much that it doesn’t last every year, “said Sandra Kesh, an infectious disease specialist at the West Med Medical Group.

Experts could only cite an example of a disease whose clinical outcome worsens upon reinfection. Dengue causes a harmful immune response that can be fatal when re-infected.

Most illnesses do not recur or have similar or milder symptoms.

However, two reinfections of COVID-19 have been recorded, with patients showing exacerbated results the second time.

25 years old Nevada Men’s Second Case It was “symptomatically more severe”, An 89-year-old Dutch woman with a rare form of cancer She died when she fought the virus again.

But experts said there was not enough evidence that the second match would be more serious.

“The second infection tends to be mild or symptomatic, except for men and Dutch patients in Nevada, which was a unique situation,” said Kesh.

“We are talking about a very endangered host, which is not a surprising result given that she is receiving chemotherapy, has cancer and is her elderly.”

Kesh said more research is needed to track reinfection, but what she has seen so far is promising.

“It’s encouraging that the second infection is milder or asymptomatic than the first, or similar,” she said.

But she added, “the next few years will be a learning process.”

“We haven’t really answered what we’ve learned about the virus’s genetic dexterity and the immune response it produces, and whether the immune response is sufficient to return to strains with different COVIDs.” she said.