The specialist spoke about the chances of re-infection with COVID-19.
Many people who have had coronavirus are confident that the presence of antibodies will help them avoid re-infection. This means that the need for vaccination disappears. Therefore, we turned to Natalia Horn, the general practitioner of the Krede Expert clinic, to find out about the chances of contracting the virus again.
General practitioner of the clinic “Krede Expert”
– I can reassure the public in connection with the fact that, although cases of re-infection have been diagnosed, at the moment there are very few of them and they need a detailed analysis: it is necessary to establish whether the first case of infection was real, whether it was exactly a coronavirus and how unmistakable it was. in the second case, the same virus is present. For this, at least you must have two confirming PCR test for both diseases, rather than focus only on symptoms.
At the moment, the topic of re-infection is unnecessarily heightened. If a person has suffered from covid, documented by PCR and antibodies, then they can say with a high degree of probability that the patient is not subject to re-infection. The whole idea of global vaccination is based on this. However, all this is very individual and is now only being studied.
If a person has had a coronavirus and again feels similar symptoms …
… a detailed diagnosis and exclusion of the variant of other diseases is necessary (for example, symptoms may indicate the manifestation of complications after the first disease).
Moreover, now we are talking about persistence of the virus (delayed reverse development of the virus), which is not re-infection, but its activation. That is, this is a virus that a person previously had on the principle of herpes, makes itself felt again.
There is no systematic data on reinfection now, and each case with such treatment is unique. Virologists talk about the reactivation of the virus. When the body receives a virus, a cellular and humoral response with antibodies occurs, the body stops replicating the virus and its cells, logically, leave the body, leaving antibodies that protect against re-infection.
According to the theory expressed by Korean and American scientists, the virus does not completely leave the body, remaining in it, and now this is confirmed by a number of studies and tests. Respectively, when immunity is weakened, the virus can again replicate in a person, and repeated symptoms occur, but this is not a re-infection… Exactly according to the model of behavior of the herpes virus, when it sleeps in the body, but with hypothermia or a drop in immunity, it is activated again and gives rise to rashes. A number of scientists consider this a hypothesis, others call it persistence and reactivation of the virus, but it is very early to draw official conclusions based on unverified sources.
Before claiming that a re-infection has happened, it is necessary to carefully study the tests that were given in the first and second cases, as well as the symptoms and treatment. But it makes sense to wait for real information from virologists based on analytics of a large amount of data to obtain clinical recommendations in a year or two. Therefore, do not rely on hasty conclusions.