‘Singular Finding’: First Case of COVID-19 Reinfection Confirmed in US, Report Says

Last week saw reports about cases of reinfection with the coronavirus in two patients in Europe and another in Hong Kong, but they either suffered from a milder form of the disease or were asymptomatic the second time.

American scientists have announced the first confirmed case of a COVID-19 reinfection in the US, according to their study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed after being submitted to the journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

The study, which was also published as a preprint on the Social Science Research Network (SSRN), is related to a 25-year-old man living in Reno, Nevada, who first tested positive for the coronavirus in mid-April after he had a sore throat, cough, headache, nausea, and diarrhoea.

He then recovered, but tested positive for COVID-19 once again in late May and developed more severe symptoms this time, the study said. The man’s blood oxygen levels plummeted and he was rushed to a hospital, where he received oxygen support.

He explained that after a patient recovers from the COVID-19, researchers have no idea about “how much immunity is built up, how long it may last, or how well antibodies play a role in protection against a reinfection”.

The development followed medics reporting confirmed coronavirus cases of reinfection in a patient in Hong Kong and two more in Europe last week; all of them either developed a milder form of COVID-19 or did not have any obvious symptoms the second time.

The US has been hit the hardest by the coronavirus outbreak, with 5.9 million registered cases and 181,779 fatalities, according to Johns Hopkins University’s latest estimates.

Sourse: sputniknews.com