SevenHills Hospital to study Covid reinfection

Last week, the BMC instructed the Andheri-based hospital to study the risk of Covid reinfection and the impact of hospitalisation on individuals who have recovered from a previous infection

Mumbai As Covid cases are on the decline, health infrastructure is shifting its focus to cases of reinfection among Covid patients, with SevenHills Hospital (SHH), one of the major Covid facilities of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), already starting a study.

In the study, Sevenhills Hospital will be looking into the role of immunity acquired from previous infection versus hybrid immunity acquired from a previous infection and vaccination (Satish Bate/HT PHOTO)

Last week, the BMC instructed the Andheri-based hospital to study the risk of Covid reinfection and the impact of hospitalisation on individuals who have survived and recovered from a previous infection.

Suresh Kakani, additional municipal commissioner, said that the study will help them get more insights on the virus. “It will help us manage the virus and also plan future strategies,” he said.

In the study, SHH will be looking into the role of immunity acquired from previous infection versus hybrid immunity acquired from a previous infection and vaccination.

“We will be checking how many got re-infected and how many had taken the vaccine. We will also check the severity of the disease and the gap between the reinfection,” said Dr Balkrishna Adsul, Dean of SHH.

According to SHH data, so far, they have found 643 patients who got Covid twice and 54 who got it thrice. The facility has 1,850 beds and has so far treated 47,049 patients and recorded a toll of 3,066.

Dr Smita Chavhan, additional Dean at Sevenhills, said, “In the case of reinfection, we saw mild to moderate symptoms. We observed that the elderly got affected more. 36 of them were critical and succumbed to the infection.”

Dr Vasant Nagvekar, an infectious disease expert and state task force member, said that it will be interesting to see the results of the study. “In the third wave, we saw many people, who previously tested positive in the first or second wave, testing positive again. We observed that in the third wave, both natural immunity and the immunity provided by vaccines didn’t work. A person testing positive for Covid thrice is rare,” he said.

He said that many of these patients had milder symptoms like high fever, sore throat with severe body ache, and didn’t require hospitalisation.

“The protection/immunity provided naturally or through vaccination will wane off over time. It will be interesting to know the severity of the disease in such cases and whether they were vaccinated. This will help in the future management of the disease too,” said another state task force member.

So far, in Mumbai, 1,057,995 cases have been registered and 19,559 have lost their lives.