Patient Recovered From COVID-19 Tests Positive Again In US

Patient recovered from COVID-19 tests positive again in US

Doctors are very concerned that officially recovered patients with a negative PCR test, after a long time, again show a positive result against the background of serious health problems. This may mean that the acquired immunity decreases over time, or there is a possibility of a relapse of the disease.

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Shelby Hedgecock received the first positive PCR test for coronavirus at the end of April, CNN reports. On May 9, the test was negative and the woman was declared recovered, but three months later she still feels unwell. She suffers from headaches, chronic fatigue and weakness, in addition, she has problems with the speech apparatus.

Two weeks later, the woman had a PCR test. The oropharyngeal swab test was negative, while the nasal swab confirmed coronavirus infection again. Doctors are trying to figure out if the first negative test was false, or if a second test revealed reinfection.

“We do not yet have documented cases of re-infection. But this does not mean that they cannot be. If people who have had the coronavirus lose their immunity to infection, in six months we will see a significant number of similar cases,”medical journalist Sanjay Gupta told CNN.

The expert also said that some types of PCR tests have a fairly high percentage of false negative results - from 15% to 20%. This means that people who received an erroneous analysis considered themselves to be cured, and could continue to get sick and spread the infection.

Earlier, scientists from King's College London studied the immune response in 90 ill patients and doctors and found that after three months only 17% of the examined had the same level of antibodies.

The first test for antibodies showed a very high level of antibodies in 60% of patients, but after three months it remained in only 17% of those examined.

“In some cases, the level of antibodies dropped 23 times, in others, it was completely depleted,” the researchers write.

In June, scientists from Egypt and Saudi Arabia announced a high probability of recurrence of the disease in a significant proportion of patients. In the very first study cited by the scientists, it was indicated that 9.1% of discharged patients with COVID-19 experienced reactivation of SARS-CoV-2. In the second such study, the number of such cases increased to 14.5%, and in the third - up to 21.4%.

“It cannot be ruled out that some relapses may in fact be attributed to persistent infections where the PCR result was falsely negative at discharge, but this does not exclude that patients who have recovered from COVID-19 may be at risk of recurrence. infection or reactivation of the virus with a relapse of COVID-19, "Professor Alexander Kukharchuk wrote on his Facebook page.