Since its appearance two months ago in South Africa, Ómicron has already spread to 171 countries. For the new variant, In the last seven days, almost 21.7 million new infections were registered globallyaccording to the statistics site Worldometers. In Argentina, meanwhile, after the explosive wave at the beginning of January, in which the strain caused 25% of all cases of the entire pandemic, the positive They begin to go down slowly and this Tuesday 49,122 new infected were reported, while the deaths were 240.
In this context, researchers from the University of California, San Francisco, dedicated themselves to analyzing the phenomenon of reinfections generated by Omicron and discovered that with this strain It seems to be easier to get infected again shortly after having the disease.
Why is reinfection more likely with omicron?
The expectation that this wave of Omicron that affects the whole world will be the one that helps the transition from a pandemic to an endemicwith controlled seasonal outbreaks, is a dilemma that occupies specialists and is still unknown.
In this regard, the findings of the study by the University of California not entirely hopeful regarding the transformation of SARS-CoV-2 into an endemic virus.
This is because the immunity produced by Ómicron seems not to be enough to combat possible new more virulent variants that may arise, so it would not protect against new outbreaks and would allow reinfection in less time.
The experts reached this conclusion taking into account that the production of neutralizing antibodies appears to be related to the severity of the diseaseso the fact that Omicron contagions are usually milder than with previous variants influences when natural immunity is produced after the conditionthis being minor.
This is how the study explains it: “Our results suggest that the immunity induced by Omicron may not be sufficient to prevent infection from another more pathogenic variantshould it come up in the future.”
In addition, they observed that the protection generated by a natural infection is approximately one third of that obtained through a booster vaccination, so an infection does not necessarily guarantee antibodies against possible new strains Y it is preferable to choose to reinforce the doses of vaccines already applied.
“It highlights the continued importance of vaccine boosters to enhance immunity, as advanced infection alone may not be reliable in protecting against repeat infections or future illness from new strains,” They explain from the University of California.
A) Yes, having contracted Ómicron is not a guarantee that sufficient immunity has been generated so as not to be infected again in the short and medium termso there is more probability of suffer from the disease again in a short time.
On the other hand, and in this same line of analysis, a study carried out in the United Kingdom found that the risk of being re-infected with Covid-19 shortly after the illness is 16 times higher with the Omicron variant than with its predecessor, Delta.
It should be noted that, according to the Ministry of Health of Argentina, it is considered as suspected reinfection to a case in which, having to have the natural antibodies after the first illness still functional for the amount of time between infection and infection, these are evaded by the new virus.
Thus, a case of reinfection occurs when someone tests positive in a PCR test after a period of between 45 and 90 days after the first infection of SARS-CoV-2remaining symptom-free and/or with undetectable PCR results during that window.
The chronicler
