Havana, Cuba: Researchers from the University of Hong Kong reported the first case of reinfection by COVID-19 in the world, a 33-year-old man who registered his second infection after remaining healthy for four months.
Meanwhile virologists from the Netherlands and Belgium reported the day before the first cases of reinfections by COVID-19 in Europe, by identifying two patients who after recovering from the disease were infected a second time, TeleSur reports.
According to the virologist and advisor to the World Health Organization (WHO), Marion Koopmans, one of the reinfections was detected in the Netherlands in an elderly man with a weakened immune system. Meanwhile, the other case is a Belgian woman who tested positive for COVID-19 three months after the first infection.
Koopmans explained that the different strains of SARS-CoV-2 differ in the genetic code, so you can be sure that there is a reinfection after confirming it in the ANR code or genetic material of the virus.
In this sense, the Belgian virologist Marc Van Ranst assured that there are enough differences in this case to be able to speak of a different strain, a second infection.
After months of studies of the virus, both scientists indicated the high possibility that existed of finding cases of reinfection, something that, as they recognize, is in line with expectations, only that there was no evidence of it yet.
According to Koopmans, respiratory infections can occur twice or even more frequently, since it is known that a person is not protected for life if they were infected once and that is what we expect with COVID-19?.
Similarly, she pointed out that once reinfections are confirmed, these cases should be carefully investigated and seen if they occur with more or less frequency, and then analyze what genetic code these viruses have.
