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Doctors in France are treating a critically ill patient infected with the South African coronavirus variant, four months after recovering from Covid-19, which the study’s authors said is the first such case.
The 58-year-old man had a history of asthma and initially tested positive for Covid-19 in September, when he presented medical staff with fever and difficulty breathing.
The symptoms persisted for only a few days, and the man tested negative for Covid-19 twice in December 2020.
However, he was hospitalized in January and was diagnosed with the South African variant.
The patient’s condition has worsened and he is currently in a “critical condition” in a ventilator.
“This is, as far as we know, the first description of reinfection with South Africa (the variant) that causes severe Covid-19, four months after a first mild infection,” said the authors of a study published this week in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.
More infectious
The variant of coronavirus 501Y.V2 appeared at the end of last year in South Africa and immediately caused alarm among disease specialists.
It has eight key mutations, one of which affects the virus’s spike protein, making it more effective at binding to human cells and therefore more infectious.
Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna vaccine manufacturers say their mRNA vaccines are still effective against variants in South Africa and one released last year in the UK.
However, a study last week showed that the AstraZeneca vaccine failed to prevent mild to moderate cases of infection in 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,” said the authors of the reinfection study.
(AFP)