After Mumbai, Bengaluru & Ahmedabad, Now Chennai Reports Reinfection Among Cured COVID Patients
Coronavirus aka SARS-CoV-2 aka COVID-19 is unlike anything that we have know for a long time. Even the world's best scientists and medical professionals are only still learning about the virus, which has resulted in more confusion than a conclusion.
For months we were told that the virus won't affect a recovered COVID-19 patient as they have developed antibodies to fight further infection.
But there have been several cases around the world where patients who have been declared as recovered getting reinfected, sometimes after months.
Past weeks has seen rise in reinfection cases
In the past few weeks, several cases of COVID-19 reinfections have been reported from across India.
Two cases were reported from Mumbai, where patients who were declared recovered in July tested positive for COVID-19.
Earlier, a resident doctor from the anaesthesia department of Sion Hospital and three doctors from BYL Nair Hospital, including a resident, a senior medical officer and an assistant professor, had tested positive for Covid-19 for the second time after recovering from the first infection months ago.
A private hospital in Bengaluru on Sunday confirmed COVID re-infection in a 27-year-old woman who had tested positive in July and was discharged after recovery.
Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) has reported four cases of Covid-19 reinfection between August 18 and September 6, nearly four months after they tested positive for the first time.
A press release from AMC said that among the four patients who tested positive again, Ą°one has history of visit to Kerala just before the second infection whereas the other three were in Ahmedabad.Ąą
At least 10 patients returned to four government medical college hospitals in Chennai with COVID-positive reports days or weeks after they were declared cured.
Scientists still trying to figure out
In the last two weeks, scientists in the US and Hong Kong said they were able to use sophisticated testing to prove that the virus associated with each instance of their patientĄ¯s infection represented genetically different strains.
The World Health Organisation doesnĄ¯t rule out the risk of reinfection from SARS-Cov2.
Ą°There is currently no evidence that people, who have recovered from COVID-19 and have antibodies, are protected from a second infection. Some governments have suggested that the detection of antibodies to the SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, could serve as the basis for an immunity passport or risk-free certificate that would enable individuals to travel or return to work assuming they are protected against re-infection. But no study has currently evaluated whether the presence of antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 confers immunity to subsequent infection by this virus in humans,Ąą says the WHO.
