A study published Thursday by the scientific journal The Lancet Health Longevity found that clients of nursing homes who had covid-19 were about 85 percent less likely to be infected with coronavirus between October and February than clients who they did not have the first infection.
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After the first infection, the probability of reinfection decreased by about 60 percent for employees of homes for the elderly.
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“It is very good news that the natural infection protects against reinfection during this time. The risk of recurrent infection seems to be very low, “said Maria Krutikovová from UCL.
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“The fact that covid-19 provides residents of nursing homes with a high level of protection is also encouraging given previous concerns that these people of age develop a less robust immune response,” she added.
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The study involved 682 clients of British nursing homes and 1429 employees. The median age of seniors was 86 years. According to tests conducted last June and July, about a third had antibodies to the coronavirus.
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The study did not look at the effectiveness of the vaccine, so it excluded participants 12 days after the first dose. The researchers want to investigate the effectiveness of the covid-19 vaccine in another study.
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Alexander Edwards, a professor of biomedical technology at the University of Reading, said there was still a lot of uncertainty about how long and how much covid-19 protects against re-infection.
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“Reinfection occurs, so protection is incomplete. We expect the natural infection to protect against more serious infections, but we still don’t have enough data, ”said Edwards, who did not participate in the study.
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The researchers said the study was taking place at a time when the more contagious variant of alpha, which first appeared in Britain, had spread. This suggests that previous coronavirus infection provides relatively high protection against reinfection with the British variant.
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However, the UK authorities have recently been concerned about the rise of a variant of coronavirus called delta, which was first discovered in India and is more contagious than most previous versions of the virus, according to preliminary research.
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