A 31-year-old health worker became infected twice a few days later with different variants even if fully vaccinated. the closest reinfection ever documented
Twice Covid within only 20 days of each other and despite vaccine and booster: happened to a young woman in Spain, a 31-year-old health worker who was infected first with the Delta variant, then with Omicron within a few weeks. This case, presented at the congress of the European Society of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology underway in Lisbon, shows that one can reinfect even after a short time, despite complete vaccination and that Omicron largely capable of evading vaccine and previous infection immunity.
History
The nurse tested positive for a molecular swab the first time on December 20, 2021 when screening personnel in the workplace without showing any symptoms. She had received the booster 12 days earlier. She isolated herself for 10 days before returning to work. January 10, 2022, just 20 days after testing positive for the first time, she developed cough, fever, general malaise. She ran another molecular test that was still positive. The whole viral genome sequencing revealed that the patient had been infected with two different Sars-CoV-2 strains. The first infection, in December, was with the Delta variant. The second, in January, with the Omicron variant.
The possible explanation
The double infection itself comes as no surprise, as the professor Pierangelo Clericipresident of the Italian Clinical Microbiologists Association: Many infectious diseases can cause reinfection, let’s not forget, perfectly normal. in the “game” of the virus that can happen with any variants. Above all this is a variant from the first infection that is important, because the first was a Delta and this was an Omicron 2. So it is in the biology of the virus to be able to reinfect when two variants are “distant” from the point of view of mutations. For the advantage of vaccination, which still on the basis of the Wuhan strain for which it acts on a large part of the viral genome that has not changed, allows the disease not to explode and not to admit patients who eventually reinfect.
The importance of sequencing
According to Spanish scientists this case also indicates theimportance of sequencing the virus genome in fully vaccinated subjects who test positive or in those who reinfect, because both cases hide the possibility that a new variant has emerged capable of evading the natural and vaccine-induced immune defenses. The doctor Gemma Recio of the Institut Catala ‘de Salut in Tarragona which studied the case explained that the people who have had Covid-19 cannot assume they are protected against reinfection, even if they have been fully vaccinated. However, both previous infection with other variants and vaccination appear to partially protect against serious illness and hospitalization in those who contract Omicron.
Alarm bells
The case of the Spanish nurse also deserved the attention of Congress for other reasons: Because she is a health worker. So obviously we want to emphasize the fact that inside hospitals, circulating patients are still very infected with all types of variants, Clerici explains. Furthermore, as Gemma Recio pointed out, reinfection reinforces the need for push on sequencing, to understand what is circulating. Because if we hadn’t sequenced, we wouldn’t have verified that they were two different variants. We would probably have said coronavirus, and that’s it. And then there is the speech of vaccination: coverage against sickness sickness and serious illness remains constantlyeven with the variants that emerged after Wuhan.
The reinfections
Covid reinfections are increased significantly in December 2021 after the much more infectious Omicron variant emerged (classified as a variant of concern by the World Health Organization on November 26, 2021) and there was another increase when a slightly different version of it, BA.2, appeared in early March.
They usually come cases with a second positive swab at least 90 days after the first are considered reinfections. Based on this definition, British health officials say that nearly 900,000 people have been potentially infected twice since the beginning of April, although it is difficult to establish an exact number because only genome-wide sequencing can confirm that infections are caused by different strains and very few positive tests go through this process. Sure the standard is 90 days, for not to be excluded that the lady could be infected simultaneously with the two variants – emphasizes Clerici -. He once manifested a first variant, which was predominant in viral load. Subsequently, when the viral load was knocked down, a second one appeared. Everyone reacts differentlyas also happens with the question of the immune response to vaccination: the average of 10 days, but there are people who develop it after 30. all variable.
Times are getting shorter
Now, with Omicron, times are evidently shortened since it is possible to recontact yourself after a short time if you were first infected with another variant. Prior to Omicron’s arrival, the UK reinfection rate was 1% and now 11%. Even in Italy the rate of reinfection is constantly growing, week after week: the latest report from the Istituto Superiore di Sanit speaks of a percentage of reinfections equal to 4.4%. If getting infected with the same variant, according to scientists, is highly unlikely, rehabilitating Covid by becoming infected with other variants is possible, albeit rare. And if new variants emerge, the phenomenon can only continue even if vaccines in most cases protect against serious disease.
The pan-variant vaccine
Perhaps one can reassure us more vaccine that may also be effective against variants? Absolutely yes – Clerici replies -. what you are studying now. There are centers in Canada and England that are investigating the possibility of these pan-variant vaccines
. In the next two or three years, we will probably no longer orient ourselves with boosters but once a year, in the autumn period, in addition to the flu shot, the pan-variant vaccine will also be offered.
April 21, 2022 (change April 21, 2022 | 12:59 pm)
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