Hong Kong man tests COVID-19 positive 4.5 months after first encounter with virus

Guwahati: According to researchers in Hong Kong, the novel coronavirus has resurfaced in a 33-year-man. If this report is indeed correct, this will be the first confirmed case of reinfection with the coronavirus.

"An apparently young and healthy patient had a second case of Covid-19 infection which was diagnosed 4.5 months after the first episode," University of Hong Kong researchers said in a statement on Monday, August 24.

According to the researchers' report, the 33-year-old man had only mild symptoms the first time, and no symptoms during his 're-infection'.

The reinfection was discovered when he returned from a trip to Spain, the researchers said. The further added that the virus they sequenced closely matched the strain circulating in Europe in the months of July and August.

"Our results prove that his second infection is caused by a new virus that he acquired recently rather than prolonged viral shedding," a clinical microbiologist at the University of Hong Kong said.

This report has raised the alarm across the world as it suggests that immunity to the virus may last only a few months in some people. This report could also have a bearing on the vaccines being developed for the virus in laboratories across the world.

Experts opine that since there are millions of cases of the coronavirus across the world, it is not surprising that a few people might be reinfected with the virus only a few months after their first encounter with the respiratory disease.

Although doctors across the world have reported several cases of presumed reinfections, none of those cases have been confirmed with rigorous testing.

Recovered people are known to shed viral fragments for weeks, which can cause tests to show a positive result in the absence of the live virus.

However, the sequencing of the virus from both rounds of infection was performed in this particular case reported from Hong Kong and there were significant differences in the two sets of virus, indicating that the patient was infected a second time.

Although common cold coronaviruses are known to cause reinfections in less than a year, experts had hoped that the new coronavirus might behave more like its cousins SARS and MERS, which produce longer-lasting immunity of a few years.

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