A woman medico, who was India’s first COVID-19 patient, has tested positive again for the virus, health authorities said in Karala’s Thrissur on Tuesday.
The 20-year-old had undergone an RT-PCR test as she was going to Delhi. She is presently under home quarantine. However, she is asymptomatic, the official added.
Her family said she is showing no visible symptoms and that she has also been administered the first Covid-19 vaccine dose.
She was enrolled at a medical college in China and tested positive for Covid-19 in January 2020 after returning to India following the outbreak of the pandemic. After nearly three weeks of treatment at the Thrissur Medical College Hospital, she had tested negative twice for the virus, confirming her recovery, and was discharged on February 20, 2020.
Two of her friends, who travelled with her from Wuhan, the epicentre of the pandemic in China, had also later tested positive. According to the state health department at that time, 34 people were in isolation wards across various hospitals in the state.
An Indian Council of Medical Research study from January to October last year estimated 4.5% re-infection cases. Researchers at New Delhi’s Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB) found over 10% of the people were likely exposed to the virus again during the April wave of infections in Delhi.
The findings were based on the sequential analysis of samples from 1,000 people across 10 locations. The study found that the antibodies in them were mostly declining before they shot up again. It found that 80% of the participants with antibodies against Sars-CoV-2 virus, which causes Covid-19, in June, after the fourth wave of infections (and the second nationwide) in Delhi.
