Covid-19 survivors could suffer reinfection: experts

Health experts at the Khyber Medical University have said that the novel coronavirus could potentially cause reinfection.

Research conducted by the medical scientists at the Khyber Medical University (KMU) has revealed that an employee of the provincial health department who had tested positive for the virus in June this year has been re-infected. It added that despite developing anti-bodies, the patient has contracted the virus again.

The research further explained that the patient initially contracted Covid-19 and then completely cleared the virus from his system but was again exposed to it leading to reinfection.

The KMU Vice-Chancellor Professor Dr Ziaul Haq has said that the second wave of coronavirus has proved to be deadly in several countries and it could prove fatal in Pakistan too due to harsh winter weather.

He urged the public to strictly follow the social distancing protocols and wear a facemask.

Khwaja Siddiqui, a Pakistani-American doctor at Houston’s Baylor College of Medicine, in May this year had also said that Covid-19 could potentially cause reinfection.

Siddiqui, however, clarified that more research is needed to definitively “know for sure if this is the case”. He added that finding the answer to this question would change the public health outlook on the disease. In the backdrop of a swath of cases of ‘reinfections’ in South Korea, China and parts of Europe, he said it had raised serious concerns over tackling the deadly virus which has brought the entire world to a standstill.

He had said that sometimes patients who tested negative after initially testing positive and when they were retested weeks later they have the virus. Does this mean they were re-infected?”

The viral replication has been suppressed but the virus is still not completely eliminated from the body,” the doctor explained. “At this stage, the virus would be undetectable but still present in the body.”

He further said that later on the virus can suddenly become active again and start re-infecting cells, adding that the virus survivors could test positive once more.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 16^th, 2020.