Study: First case of coronavirus re-infection identified in US

As the world struggles to deal with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, even the slightest of new information about the virus can bring a fresh supply of stress. And now a new study has found that a young adult in Nevada, US has been re-infected with the novel coronavirus, marking the first confirmed case of reinfection in the country and the fourth in the world.

According to the online preprint of a study that has not been reviewed by outside experts yet, researchers have found the first possible case of virus reinfection in the US after a 25-year-old in Nevada tested positive the second time. The team at the University of Nevada Reno School of Medicine and the Nevada State Public Health Laboratory reported that genetic tests indicated the patient was infected with two different varieties of the virus.

Researchers are publishing a paper on his case in the medical journal The Lancet. The 25-year-old man first contracted a mild case of the deadly virus in April after he experienced symptoms like cough, headache, nausea and diarrhoea, from which he recovered. According to the researchers, he got better around April 27 and tested negative for the infection twice later. He continued to feel better for about a month.

However, on May 31, he sought care for fever, headache, cough, dizziness and nausea. As per the study, his second case was severe, requiring him to be hospitalised and put on oxygen support. Then he was tested again for the virus and the results came out to be positive, confirming the reinfection. The team of researchers examined genetic material from both coronavirus specimens collected from the man and their evaluation suggested that he had two different viral infections.

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According to the researchers, this qualifies the case as a true infection and experts expect that reinfections would not be uncommon. The reasons around the man's reinfection are not clear, but researchers stated that the immune system, the virus, or a combination of both could be the determining factor. The researchers also noted that these findings suggest that humans can contract the novel coronavirus multiple times.

COVID-19 reinfections reported in Hong Kong, Belgium and Netherlands

However, this is not the first case of reinfection globally. Apart from US, novel coronavirus reinfections have also been reported in Hong Kong, the Netherlands and Belgium.  Earlier this week, a team of researchers from Hong Kong said that they found the first case of COVID-19 reinfection in a 33-year-old man, who tested positive for the virus twice this year. The pre-print study, which the University of Hong Kong said recently has been accepted by the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases identified that the man was re-infected with two different versions of the virus 142 days apart. 

(Image credit: AP)

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