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The number of people getting infected with the highly contagious COVID-19 disease, recovering and then falling sick again is now increasing in the United States where more than 1.4 lakh people have died from the virus.
According to a report in The Washington Post, if the assertions of Covid-19 reinfection are proved it could complicate efforts to make a long-lasting vaccine, or to achieve herd immunity where most of the population has become immune to the virus.
"There is still not enough evidence or sufficient time since the virus first struck to draw firm conclusions about how people develop immunity to covid-19, how long it might last — or what might make it less robust in some individuals than in others," the report said.
Doctors emphasize there is no evidence of widespread vulnerability to reinfection and that it is difficult to know what to make of these cases in the absence of detailed lab work, or medical studies documenting reinfections, the report said.
Among the 20 countries with the largest outbreaks, the United States ranks sixth highest globally for deaths per capita, according to a Reuters analysis.
Total cases are now nearing 4 million in the US.
Daniel Griffin, an infectious diseases doctor and researcher at Columbia University Medical Center, was quoted as saying that with every virus -- including chickenpox, for which antibodies are supposed to last a lifetime -- there are cases of people who become sick again after recovering from the initial illness.
On the basis of what is known about the novel coronavirus, physicians and public health officials believe reinfection is certainly a theoretical possibility.
"No one is yet believing in reinfection since there is no good scientific report on it," Monica Gandhi, a professor of medicine and associate chief of infectious diseases at the University of California-San Francisco, said while adding that on the other hand, no one wants to dismiss the possibility.
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