If you have Omicron, are you worried about re-infection with Delta?

March 19, 2022 12:00 GMT+7

Many people wonder about having recovered from Covid-19 with immunity for at least 6 months, but there are cases of people re-positive after a period of only 1 month and what the former F0 is most worried about is re-infection. infected with the Delta strain or not?

Khong Thi Mai’s family (Ha Dong) is in isolation because of Covid-19, while everyone with Covid-19 has not lost their taste and smell, in Mai’s house alone, 4 people are infected, 3 people are still dying. taste, smell.

Mai thinks it’s the Delta variant. She is now worried about re-infection with the Omicron strain. When Ms. Mai was so worried, those who had come into contact with her were worried about re-infecting the Delta strain from her.

According to Dr. Pham Hung Van – Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City Association of Clinical Microbiology, The Omicron variant predominates, but the Delta variant still exists in parallel. There are still some people who have the Delta variant, but not the Omicron completely.

However, once infected with the Omicron variant, the infected person no longer has to worry about being re-infected with the Delta variant. Studies have shown that people who were previously infected with Covid-19 due to Delta or Alpha variants can still be reinfected with Omicron variants, or infected with Omicron BA.1 can still be reinfected with Omicron BA.2 or BA.3 but rare. than.

According to Dr. Truong Huu Khanh – Infection Advisor, Children’s Hospital 1, Ho Chi Minh City, Currently, most patients are infected with Omicron. A person already infected with Omicron will very rarely be re-infected with Omicron itself but will be re-infected with a new strain. Including sub-variants Omicron BA1 or BA.2, BA.3 or later add BA. 4, 5 are difficult to infect in 1 strain. According to a Danish study, the rate is only a few parts per million.

As for patients infected with Delta and then can re-infected with Omicron, the rate is about 5%-10% but it is also mild. Mild reinfection is because the previous infection has also provided the body with a certain amount of antibodies, which Omicron is mild in nature.

If you are infected with Omicron, you are not afraid of being infected with Delta again. On the other hand, the Delta variant may now have disappeared in some communities. Because, the mutation that spreads quickly will overwhelm the old one.

Many people are afraid to mutate Delta because they think it causes more severe disease, but according to Dr. Van, it is difficult to say that Omicron causes milder disease than Delta because the two times of disease in the community are different.

People with the Delta variant used to be at a time when we didn’t have a vaccine, so there’s a high percentage of people with risk factors that get it going. At the present stage, the majority of people with Omicron infection have been vaccinated, so the rate of people suffering from severe disease is very low.

To date, Omicron or Delta infection in people who are not at risk and who have been vaccinated has generally been mild, mainly chills, fatigue, low-grade fever, and sore throat, and persists for several days. then gone. Symptoms of loss of smell and loss of taste are often absent in people infected with Omicron compared to people infected with Delta.

Illustrated photo.

Patients should note that in order to detect those who may be at risk of worsening, the solution is also by monitoring for signs of a decrease in SpO2. If the reading is still above 95%, they should be asked to walk for 5 to 10 minutes to detect potential SpO2 dropers (at this time SpO2 will decrease below 95%) and treat promptly.

Particularly, current oral antiviral drugs such as Molnupiravir or Favipiravir should only be used for the first 5 days and should be indicated for those at risk of severe symptoms such as a lot of cough, extreme fatigue, no fever reduction and SpO2 drops below 95 %.

With F0 being cured of the disease, it is considered a 1 dose of vaccine, Dr. Van said, the research of the Clinical Microbiology Association of Ho Chi Minh City neutralizing antibodies to people who have received enough vaccines and infected with Covid-19 up to 90%.

The recovered F0 will have antibodies to fight against the SARS-CoV-2 virus invasion, the amount of antibodies produced by each person is different, depending on the location and background disease.

However, if the antibody is not strong enough, the recovered person subjectively does not comply with 5K, when exposed to another F0 carrying the new strain, there is a risk of re-infection.

Phuong Thuy