According to a study published on the 13th, patients with Wuhan pneumonia (a novel coronavirus disease, COVID-19) may experience more severe symptoms after two infections, confirming that humans may be infected more than once with this potentially fatal disease; the Netherlands also reported on the 12th that an 89-year-old woman died after her second infection with Wuhan pneumonia, the world’s first second-degree death case.
Experts believe that the possibility of re-infection will have a major impact on the way the world fights the disease, especially in terms of vaccine development.
The elderly Dutch woman was reportedly being treated for Waldenstrom’s macroglobulinemia (WM), a rare type of white blood cell cancer that can be treated but not cured.
Researchers said the elderly woman was taken to the hospital earlier this year with a fever and cough, tested positive for the WM virus, and remained in the hospital for five days before her WM symptoms completely disappeared.
Two months later, two days after starting a new round of chemotherapy, the woman developed fever, cough, and dyspnea again, tested positive again for the martial lung virus, tested negative on days 4 and 6, worsened on day 8, and died on day 14, according to the Dutch researchers.
The researchers, who had test samples from the two infections, found that the genetic makeup of the virus differed to some extent that could not be explained by in vivo evolution, further supporting the theory that the elderly woman was twice infected.
According to a study published in the international medical journal Tickle 12, an American patient was infected with Wuhan pneumonia twice between April and June this year, and the second time was more serious. The report notes that this case may suggest that the WTP vaccine may not be effective.
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