France is approaching one million possible cases of reinfection with Covid-19, with the outbreak of contamination linked to the Omicron variant, Public Health France said on Friday May 13.
“
The results obtained on the samples between March 2, 2021 and April 24, 2022 show 961,550 possible cases of reinfection identified, including 96.7% since December 6, 2021
”, according to the health agency.
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Santé Publique France speaks of possible reinfection when a first episode of Covid-19 is followed by a second, provided that they are spaced at least 60 days apart.
Two categories were more affected: adults aged 18 to 40, and health professionals.
This is the possible reflection of greater exposure to risk, less adoption of preventive measures or lower vaccination coverage.
Women were slightly more reinfected than men.
The overwhelming majority of second episodes occurred during the fifth wave of the pandemic.
The highly contagious Omicron variant is involved in almost all possible reinfections (nearly 93%), according to available and interpretable screening results.
Lack of clinical data
"
After a short stabilization in early January 2022, the proportion of possible cases of reinfection reported to all Covid-19 cases has steadily increased
" and represented 6.9% the week of April 19, noted Public Health France.
The rebound in the circulation of Sars-Cov-2 in the spring and the emergence of the Omicron BA.2 sub-lineage, which is more transmissible than BA.1 and has become the majority, are "
two factors that may play a role in the current trend to the increase in the number of reinfections
”.
“
It also seems more likely that the decrease in post-infectious or post-vaccination immune protection over time in the French population amplifies this phenomenon
”, writes SPF.
The average time between the two episodes of infection is just over 7 months.
Public Health France recalled the limits on its assessments of reinfections, for lack of clinical, virological or epidemiological data.
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In view of the description of cases of early reinfections in the world, the French agency also questioned a reduction to 30 days of the period taken into account between two episodes of Covid-19.
But “
the analysis of possible reinfections occurring between 30 and 59 days shows that it is difficult to take them into account
”.
"
The most likely is that these are cases of prolonged infection rather than cases of reinfection
," said SPF during a press briefing.
