New study shows patients with severe cases of COVID-19 have very low chances of contracting the virus again.

Researchers at the University of Missouri School of Medicine analyzed data from more than 9,000 patients who became seriously ill and found that less than one percent tested positive again three months or more after recovery..

The median time to reinfection for those who tested positive again was three and a half months. Asthma patients and smokers are more likely to be reinfected.

The team says the findings suggest COVID-19 reinfection is highly unlikely, but possible, but note that the study was conducted before options - such as the Indian Delta variant, which may be more likely to be reinfected - began to circulate.. After recovering from an illness, patients usually have some degree of immunity because their immune system remembers the illness to prevent it from being destroyed again.. However, the duration of this immunity - and how well it works - is different for each variant of the course of the disease..

In a new study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, researchers used an anonymous COVID-19 dataset to examine electronic records of COVID cases in 62 healthcare facilities across the United States.. Researchers have identified over 9,000 patients who recovered from severe Covid between December 2019 and November 2020.. Of 9119 patients examined, only 63 received the virus a second time, that is, the reinfection rate was only 0.7 percent. Of the 63 patients who were reinfected, only two died from the virus during their second infection..

The researchers noted that the reinfected patients had less severe cases in the second bout with COVID-19 because they still had antibodies after the first case.. The median time to reinfection was three and a half months.

“This is one of the largest studies of its kind in the US, and the important message here is that reinfection with COVID-19 after the initial case is possible, and the duration of the immunity that the initial infection provides is not entirely clear,” said lead author Dr. Adnan Qureshi.. Qureshi and colleagues suggest that COVID-19 survivors should not relax their adherence to other public health measures - and that they should get vaccinated if possible.

med-heal. ru.