Infection Control
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First Documented Coronavirus Reinfection Reported in Hong Kong
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First Documented Coronavirus Reinfection Reported in Hong Kong
The patient did mount an immune response to the new infection, however, and did not experience symptoms.
A 33-year-old man was infected a second time with the coronavirus more than four months after his first bout, the first documented case of so-called reinfection, researchers in Hong Kong reported Monday.
The finding was not unexpected, especially given the millions of people who have been infected worldwide, experts said. And the man had no symptoms the second time, suggesting that even though the prior exposure did not prevent the reinfection, his immune system kept the virus somewhat in check.
“The second infection was completely asymptomatic, his immune response prevented the disease from getting worse,” said Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at Yale University who was not involved with the work but was asked to review the report findings. “It’s kind of a textbook example of how immunity should work.”
People who do not have symptoms may still spread the virus to others, however, underscoring the importance of vaccines, Dr. Iwasaki said. In the man’s case, she added, “natural infection created immunity that prevented disease but not reinfection.”
In order to provide herd immunity, a potent vaccine is needed to induce immunity that prevents both reinfection and disease,” Dr. Iwasaki said.
Doctors have reported several cases of presumed reinfection in the United States and elsewhere, but none of these were confirmed with rigorous testing. Recovered people are known to carry viral fragments for weeks, which can lead to positive test results in the absence of live virus.
The Hong Kong researchers sequenced the virus from both of the man’s infections and found significant differences, suggesting that the patient had been infected a second time.
I believe this is the first reported case that is confirmed by genome sequencing,” said Dr. Kelvin Kai-Wang To, a clinical microbiologist at the University of Hong Kong.
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