Posted in: Modified:
Doctors in France are treating a critically ill patient infected with the South African variant of the coronavirus, four months after he recovered from Covid-19, according to what the study authors said was the first case of its kind.
The 58-year-old man had a history of asthma and tested positive for Covid-19 in September when he presented medical staff with fever and shortness of breath.
Symptoms only persisted for a few days and the man tested negative for Covid-19 twice in December 2020.
However, he was admitted to hospital in January and was diagnosed with the South African variant.
The patient’s condition worsened and he is currently in a “critical condition” in a ventilator.
“This is, to our knowledge, the first description of reinfection with the South African (variant) that causes severe Covid-19, four months after a first mild infection,” said the authors of a study published this week in Clinical Infectious Diseases magazine.
More infectious
The 501Y.V2 coronavirus variant emerged late last year in South Africa and immediately caused alarm among disease specialists.
It has eight key mutations, one of which affects the ear protein of the virus, making it more effective at binding to human cells and therefore more infectious.
Vaccine manufacturers Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna say their mRNA vaccines maintain their effectiveness against South African variants and one that emerged last year in Britain.
However, a study last week showed that the AstraZeneca vaccine failed to prevent mild to moderate cases of infection with the South African variant.
“The impact of 501Y.V2 mutations on the efficacy of vaccines developed from previous SARS-CoV-2 strains is still unknown,” the authors of the reinfection study said.
(AFP)