Israeli patient dies after contracting COVID-19 twice - report
The medical findings clearly pointed to a second case of COVID-19 infection, and not merely a case of "post-coronavirus," which may result in false symptoms.
By TOBIAS SIEGALMAGEN DAVID ADOM workers, wearing protective clothing, bring a patient to the coronavirus unit at Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan(photo credit: FLASH90)
An Israeli man appears to have died after having contracted coronavirus a second time, KAN reported, making him the first in the country to die that way.The 74-year-old coronavirus patient was admitted to the Rabin Medical Center in August and fully recovered, but showed signs of being reinfected before passing away at the Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer earlier this week, according to reports.The report indicated that the medical findings clearly pointed to a second case of COVID-19 infection, and not merely a case of "post-coronavirus," which may result in false symptoms.Medical teams are now looking into the possibility of the second infection being the result of a mutated gene of the virus. The other possibility is that the virus never left the patient's body and was not detected – and the infection broke out again after remaining dormant for several months.In August, two European patients were reported to have been re-infected with the coronavirus, raising concerns about people's immunity to the virus as the world struggles to tame the pandemic.The cases, in Belgium and the Netherlands, followed a report by researchers in Hong Kong about a man there who had been re-infected with a different strain of the virus four-and-a-half months after being declared recovered - the first such re-infection to be documented.Some experts say it is likely that such cases are starting to emerge because of greater testing worldwide, rather than because the virus may be spreading differently.Reuters contributed to this report.
