A French patient in his 50s, tested positive for the coronavirus several months ago, was recontaminated, this time by the South African variant.
A first on the territory.
Currently hospitalized at Louis-Mourier hospital in Colombes, in the Paris region, he had to be placed on assisted mechanical ventilation.
With 20,700 contaminations between Thursday and Friday and more than 10,000 new hospitalizations in the last seven days, the figures for the Covid-19 epidemic in France remain stable but particularly high.
This situation is all the more precarious as the circulation of the British and South African variants, more contagious than the currently dominant strain, is accelerating, which could provoke a new epidemic outbreak.
Especially since the South African variant seems relatively insensitive to the antibodies developed by people who have already been affected by the disease.
Thus, a patient infected with the coronavirus a few months ago was again tested positive, this time for the South African variant, and hospitalized in intensive care.
This is the first serious case of reinfection of this kind detected in France.
"If the cases were to increase, it would be worrying"
This 58-year-old man is currently being treated in the service of Professor Jean-Damien Ricard, head of intensive care at the Louis-Mourier hospital (AP-HP) in Colombes, near Paris.
"What is a little worrying is that it is about a very severe form of reinfection, whereas the first time, he had not even been hospitalized", explains this specialist at the microphone of Europe 1. "There, he found himself in intensive care, under assisted mechanical ventilation, with a need for a high concentration of oxygen."
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"We can obviously imagine that he may have a personal susceptibility to viral infections", wants to qualify Jean-Damien Ricard.
"Beyond the English variant which is more transmissible, the South African variant, also more transmissible, can escape the immune response, whether it is the one built after a natural infection or post-vaccination", noted Saturday morning, in the morning of Europe 1, the epidemiologist Arnaud Fontanet, member of the Scientific Council.
"It is indeed something which, if the cases were to multiply, would be worrying," says the head of intensive care at the Louis-Mourier hospital.
"We must continue with the barrier measures. I believe that this is really the message to hammer home: we must not relax all the barrier gestures under the pretext that we have already had a Covid infection", insists Jean-Damien Ricard .