The immunologist about the re-infected man: "Is not so worried"

On Monday, researchers at the University of Hong Kong reported on what is the first known confirmed case of covid-19 re-infection.

A man in his 30s, who was ill with corona over four months ago, got stuck in a routine check at Honkong airport when it was discovered that he had an ongoing infection.

Sequence analyzes showed that there were two different variants of the virus in both cases of the disease, which according to the researchers confirms that the man was re-infected.

But according to Petter Brodin, immunologist at Karolinska Institutet, it is still too early to draw any major conclusions.

- I'm not so surprised honestly. And I'm not so worried either. Because the patient has had a milder infection the second time, he says in SVT's Aktuellt.

According to the researchers, the man had antibodies from the first infection, as he also had symptoms. On the second occasion, according to the reports, he was not even aware that he was infected.

- This is exactly how we want the immune system to work, says Petter Brodin.

- The immunity you get during an infection can either prevent you from becoming infected or prevent disease. In his case, it can be said that immunity did not prevent infection, but it prevented disease. That's really good. It would have been much more worrying if he had become very ill a second time, he says.

Doctors have previously reported that patients relapsed after a corona infection. But then, as far as is known, it was the same virus.

How long a person with antibodies is immune is not yet known. But according to Petter Brodin, most indications are that those who have been ill with covid-19 have protection.

- I do not think they need to worry at all. The antibodies in them say that they have had the infection, and we already know that most of them are immune after they have had an infection. We can be pretty sure of that. And this does not change that, says Petter Brodin.