Can we be repeatedly contaminated with the coronavirus? This is the question everyone is asking. For the first time since the start of the Covid-19 crisis, we can now respond to it. And for good reason, three cases of reinfection have been reported worldwide. Let’s do a check in.
First case of reinfection reported in Honk Kong
On Monday, August 24, researchers at the University of Hong Kong reported a confirmed case of re-infection with Covid-19. This is the first proven case of recontamination in the world. The 33-year-old man in question from Honk Kong was tested positive on March 26. After traveling to Spain via the United Kingdom and while he was cured, the man tested positive when he arrived at Honk Kong airport on August 15.
More than four months therefore separate the two contractions of Covid-19. Unlike the first infection, the man had no symptoms. After performing the genetic analyzes, the researchers said that the two successive infections were caused by two different strains of SARS-CoV-2.
Two more cases reported in the Netherlands and Belgium
Shortly after the announcement of the Honk-Kong patient on August 25, two more cases were reported in Europe. The first patient is in Belgium. This is a 50-year-old woman who tested positive for the first time in March before being recontaminated in June. The second reinfected patient is Dutch. He is an elderly man with a weakened immune system. Like the Honk-Kong patient, both cases are two different strains of Covid-19.
Should we be worried?
If this news relaunches the debate on the possible reinfection of Covid-19, specialists urge caution and not draw a definitive conclusion. What you must remember ? These three patients show that it is possible to be re-infected with the virus soon after a first infection. This is why everyone (and even patients already infected with Covid-19) must continue to practice barrier gestures to protect themselves.
If, at first glance, this inventory upsets the idea of collective immunity, some specialists do not exclude the immune response for all that. According to Stéphane De Wit, specialist in infectious diseases at Saint Pierre hospital, in Brussels: “ Immunity does not prevent you from meeting the virus again and catching it again. Immunity makes it possible to react immediately, for the body to react immediately, for the individual to defend himself and therefore, he does not develop symptoms or that he develops a much less severe, much milder form of the disease. disease, that’s what immunity is for, it’s not a mechanical barrier “.
This is what vaccines tend to aim for, since the principle is the same: they allow the body to be prepared for future exposure to the virus in order to attenuate its effects.
