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Doctors in France are treating a critically ill patient infected with the South African variant of the coronavirus, four months after recovering from Covid-19, in what the study authors said was the first such case.
The 58-year-old man had a history of asthma and first tested positive for Covid-19 in September when he presented to medical staff with a 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 diagnosed with the South African variant.
The patient’s condition has worsened and he is currently in “critical condition” on a ventilator.
“This is, to our knowledge, the first description of reinfection with the South African (variant) causing severe Covid-19, four months after a first mild infection,” said the authors of a study published this morning. week in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.
More contagious
The 501Y.V2 variant of the coronavirus emerged late last year in South Africa and immediately raised alarm bells among disease specialists.
It has eight key mutations, one of which affects the spike protein of the virus, making it more efficient at binding to human cells and therefore more infectious.
Vaccine makers Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna say their mRNA vaccines retain their efficacy against South African variants and one that emerged last year in Britain.
However, a study last week showed that AstraZeneca’s vaccine failed to prevent mild and moderate cases of infection of the South African variant.
“The impact of 501Y.V2 mutations on the efficacy of vaccines developed from earlier strains of SARS-CoV-2 is still unknown,” said the authors of the reinfection study.
(AFP)
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