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PETALING JAYAWhile the world is still dealing with Covid-19, a health expert has warned that new variants of the virus could result in reinfections, although such cases are still rare.
This comes after Singapore detected its first case of reinfection involving a migrant worker who tested positive for Covid on January 25.
The Bangladeshi worker tested positive on April 12 last year, but subsequently tested negative as of June.
Epidemiologist Prof Datuk Dr. Awang Bulgiba Awang Mahmud, who is head of the Independent Covid-19 Vaccination Advisory Committee of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, told the Sun that Covid reinfections have been documented in other countries.
“In Belgium, a patient who tested positive in March 2020 was confirmed positive for a different variant three months later. In the United States, a patient who was infected in April last year was reinfected in late May by a different variant, “he said yesterday.
Awang Bulgiba added that other cases included a patient in Hong Kong who tested positive for a different variant 142 days after a first positive polymerase chain reaction test.
According to a Covid-19 reinfection tracker, there were 47 cases of reinfection from August 2020 to January 2021 in Hong Kong, the Netherlands, the United States, Ecuador, India, Qatar, Belgium, Spain, Sweden, Brazil, Mexico, Peru, Israel and the United Kingdom.
Of these cases, there were two deaths while 40 recovered.
The tracker also recorded that the average interval between both infections was 85 days.
Awang Bulgiba said that the vaccines will not totally eliminate reinfection if the patient is exposed to a different variant that the vaccine was not designed for.
“Vaccines can reduce the risk of reinfection if vaccine-induced neutralizing antibodies work fully or even partially against the newer variant. Much research is being done to determine whether currently approved vaccines protect against newer variants such as B.1.1.7 from the UK, 501.V2 from South Africa, P.1 and P.2 from Brazil and L452R from Denmark. “
He urged Malaysians who tested positive for Covid-19 to follow all safety measures, such as wearing a mask, practicing physical distancing, and washing their hands frequently.
They could also be vaccinated later, he said, as antibody protection is likely to decline six to eight months after infection.
Awang Bulgiba added that while there is not much data on reinfections in Malaysia, authorities should be vigilant about the proliferation of new variants that can result in reinfections.
“I would strongly suggest that the virus genome be sequenced for each case of reinfection. This will give us an indication of whether a new variant is responsible for reinfection and to evaluate the effectiveness of the vaccines that we are going to use ”.
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