Journal of Nepal Medical Association (Aug 2021)

Primary Immune Response Provides Protective Efficacy against SARS-CoV-2 Reinfection

  • Rupendra Shrestha,
  • Reena Shrestha,
  • Ram Bahadur Khadka,
  • Rabin Gyawali

DOI
https://doi.org/10.31729/jnma.5538
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 59, no. 239

Abstract

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While there is absolutely no evidence to ensure recovered patients are either likely or unlikely to get reinfected. But studies in non-human primates indicate that reinfection of recovered patients is highly unlikely. It is also clear that primary immune responses or induced immunity to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 remain in circulation for several months and at least temporarily confer immunity to protect from reinfection. In addition, negative virus culture analysis of re-positive suggests that positive reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reactions in recovered patients are more likely to be false-positive, or detection of genetic remnants of virus discharged from lesions of lungs or better sampling at the time of repeat analysis. However, emerging severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 variants are likely to be causing the infections observed in some of the recovered patients.

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