The question often arises in people who have been infected with coronavirus if they are likely to become infected again and when. The strength and duration of immunity after SARS-CoV-2 infection are, in fact, very important for clinical practice, but also for the wider design of public health prevention and treatment strategies. In a recent article, published in the prestigious international scientific journal Annals of Internal Medicine, the authors compiled and meta-analyzed all the scientific data on the possibility of coronavirus re-infection.
The doctors of the Therapeutic Clinic of the Medical School of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Stavroula Paschou (Assistant Professor of Endocrinology), Theodora Psaltopoulou (Professor of Therapeutic-Epidemiology-Preventive Medicine) and Thanos Dimatopa-Prof. main points of the article.
Eighteen studies were included, which investigated the risk of re-infection after infection with SARS-CoV-2 compared with the risk of infection in individuals without prior infection. Among the studies, the risk of re-infection ranged from 0% to 2.2%. In other words, individuals with recent SARS-CoV-2 infection avoided 80% to 98% of symptomatic infections with primary or alpha variants compared to unvaccinated, non-previously infected individuals.
According to the meta-analysis, the previous infection reduced the risk of re-infection by 87%, equating to 4.3 fewer infections per 100 people in the general population and among health workers and 26.6 fewer infections per 100 people in care delivery structures. The protection remained over 80% for at least seven months.
The results for the elderly were less clear. Methods for detecting and diagnosing infection differed between studies. It is noted that none of the included studies followed patients after the onset of the Delta or Omicron variant.
In conclusion, before the onset of the Delta and Omicron variants, individuals with recent infection had strong protection against symptomatic coronavirus re-infections for seven months compared with unvaccinated, previously uninfected individuals. It remains to be investigated the durability of the re-infection protection against the latest variants.
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