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The issue of immunity still raises questions in the scientific community, but scientists at the Center for Disease Prevention and Control in South Korea have just published their findings on whether or not we can be infected a second time with this new coronavirus and the conclusion is a A sign of hope: no we can’t. At least not until the virus mutates significantly.
After more than 200 patients who had already been sick again tested positive for covid-19, both in South Korea and in China and Japan, the world was on alert, but the genetic analyzes carried out by this institute show that the virus is still has not mutated enough to reinfect someone who has already had the disease.
Scientists believe that the positive results are due to flaws in the test system because the method used to detect the coronavirus, called the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR), cannot distinguish between genetic material from a virus that is still infectious and fragments of “dead” viruses that can remain in the body long after a person has recovered. The little remnants of virus that these cured people would still have in their systems are not enough to infect others or make the carrier sick again.
The explanation was revealed at a press conference by Oh Myoung-don, a doctor at Seoul National University Hospital, after several journalists lobbied the government in recent weeks to reveal what studies were being done to people who gave positive. Already after healing.
As the same expert, quoted by the Korea Herald, explained, “the process by which this virus reproduces occurs only in host cells and does not infiltrate the nucleus.” Some viruses, such as human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) or chickenpox virus, “can integrate with the patient’s genetics because they enter the nucleus of human cells, where they can lie dormant for years and then” wake up “but the Coronavirus is not one of those viruses, ”confirmed Oh Myoung-don.
