Covid-19: in Colombes, first case in France of serious reinfection by the South African variant

This is the first time, in France, that a person who has been infected for the first time with Covid-19 has had a serious relapse due to the South African variant.

This first case was described by French researchers, Paris hospitals (AP-HP) said on Friday.

"This case illustrates the fact that the (South African) variant may be responsible for a serious reinfection after a first mild infection (with the classic coronavirus)", write the researchers in their study, published Wednesday in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases .

“This is, to our knowledge, the first description of a reinfection with the South African variant causing severe Covid-19, four months after a first moderate infection,” they add.

This is a 58-year-old patient, infected for the first time in September 2020. This man, who has a history of asthma, suffers from a fever and has moderate difficulty breathing.

A SARS-CoV-2 infection is diagnosed with a PCR test.

The symptoms disappear within a few days, and the man tested negative twice in December.

Always placed on life support

In January, he was readmitted to the emergency room of Louis-Mourier hospital (AP-HP) in Colombes (Hauts-de-Seine) for breathing difficulties and fever.

His PCR test is positive again, and genetic sequencing shows the presence of mutations characteristic of the South African variant.

Seven days later, the patient develops acute respiratory distress syndrome, which requires him to be intubated and placed on life support.

He was still in critical condition when the study was submitted for publication in the medical journal.

At the beginning of his hospitalization, serological tests detected in this patient the presence of antibodies proving a past infection.

This suggests that "the immunity developed at the end of the first infection did not make it possible to avoid reinfection by the South African variant", underlines the AP-HP.

"The virus responsible for the first infectious episode could not be sequenced", continues AP-HP.

"However, the occurrence of the first infection one month before the first description of the variant in South Africa, and three months before its first report in France, precludes the possibility" that the second infection is only an awakening of the first, she adds.

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Covid-19: is the South African variant resistant to the vaccine?

Cases of reinfection by variants, British, South African or Brazilian, have already been documented in the scientific literature.

Most often, the second episode is less severe than the first.

Moreover, these cases of reinfection are probably more numerous in reality than those identified and described as such in medical journals.

A year after the start of the pandemic, the duration of immunity against the coronavirus is still the subject of many questions, reinforced by the appearance of variants which are likely to be more contagious in recent months.

Among them, the South African is a source of particular concern: due to specific genetic characteristics, scientists fear that it will reduce the effectiveness of vaccines.