First Confirmed Case Of COVID-19 Reinfection May Have Been Registered In Hong Kong - WHO

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 24th August, 2020) Reports about a Hong Kong resident being reinfected with the novel coronavirus may be the first documented case of that happening, Maria Van Kerkhove, the head of the emerging diseases unit of the World Health Organization (WHO), said on Monday, advising caution.

Earlier in the month, a 33-year old Hong Kong citizen was reported to have caught the disease once again during a trip to Europe despite having already had the disease approximately four months prior.

"There have been more than 24 million cases reported to date, and we need to look at something like this on a population level.

And so it's very important that we document this in countries that can do this, where sequencing can be done, that would be very very helpful. But we need to not jump to any conclusions, even if this is the first documented case of reinfection. It is possible, of course, because with our experience with other human coronaviruses � the MERS coronavirus and the SARS CoV-1 coronavirus � we know that people have antibody response for some time, but it may wane," van Kerkhove told a virtual briefing.