WHO says chances of Covid-19 reinfection are ‘slim’

There is likely only a slim possibility of people being reinfected with Covid-19, the UN health agency World Health Organization said yesterday, following reports in Hong Kong that a man had contracted new coronavirus for a second time after an interval of more than four months.

Speaking to journalists in Geneva, World Health Organization spokesperson Dr Margaret Harris addressed concerns that the development could herald a new alert, reports UN News.

"The important – other important – thing to note is the numbers are very, very small," she said. "So, this is one documented case in over 23 million and we will probably see other documented cases. But it seems to be not a regular event we would have seen many more cases."

Nonetheless, Dr Harris noted that the reinfection signaled on Monday was significant.

According to the University of Hong Kong scientists who announced the development, the virus strains that infected the man more than four months apart were different, reports UN news.

"The important thing here is that this is clear documentation," the WHO spokesperson said. "So, we've had anecdotal reports every now and then from people who've tested negative, then tested positive. And it hasn't been clear up until this case whether that was simply a problem of testing or whether people were getting infected a second time."

Priorities for the UN health agency include understanding "what this means in terms of (people's) immunity", Dr Harris continued.

"This is why we have got a lot of research groups actually tracking people, measuring antibodies, trying to understand how long the immune protection lasts – the natural immune protection - and that should be understood as it is not the same as the immune protection that a vaccine provides."