Deputy Chairman of Oyo State COVID-19 Task Force, Professor Temitope Alonge has said that it is possible for an individual to get reinfected with coronavirus because individuals mount immunity to infections at different rates.
Professor Alonge, the coordinator of treatment at Oyo State Isolation centre, stated that the pattern of developing antibody to COVID-19 is so erratic and unpredictable.
According to him, “when someone has a viral infection, you expect the person to have antibody developed to mop up the virus if it comes up again. But with covid-19, we have found out that the pattern of developing this antibody is so erratic and unpredictable.”
“In fact, the so called 14 days quarantine period is not magic. We have seen people who after 14 days are still shedding the virus, even at 28 days. So the bottom line now is to check the viral load and the CT value and the antibody they have mounted before you discharge them.
“Even when they are discharged, we ask them to stay at home and still wearing their masks because they may not be infectious to you, but you, in coat looking clean may be infectious to them, so there is a risk of reinfection when you get exposed.”
Alonge, a former Chief Medical director, University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, Oyo State, however, assured that COVID-19 cases seen in Nigeria seem to be less severe to that in other parts of the world and linked this probably to the coronavirus strains circulating in Nigeria as well as body immunity.
He declared, “you will be amazed that a lot of the patients that were taken from the ISON place in Ibadan have antibodies, meaning that the infection has been there for a long time.
“We don’t know who had already contracted the virus and had developed antibodies. This virus you can wash away from your system if you have good immune system, it is when the damage comes and you have s subsisting medical condition that weakens the immune system that you succumb. More than 90 per cent actually recover full from what we are seeing and at Olodo Isolation centre, 100 per cent have recovered fully.”
Professor Alonge also linked Nigeria’s high immunity to the COVID -19 to the protective effect of Vitamin D which Nigerians derive from the sun.
“Well, we think that there might be some protection from vitamin D. That is still being researched at the moment because vitamin D helps you to build up immunity against many infections as well. So, staying in the sun, maybe about 1 or 2 hours before noon is very helpful for your immune system.
“So my hypothesis has always been that good nutrition and coming out into the sun, say about one hour, is what is giving us some degree of protection in the tropical region rather than the fact that we have some inherent immunity.
“Second, in our environment there are various strains of coronavirus; they just keep mutating. Maybe the ones that we have are not as aggressive as the ones they have abroad, nobody knows,” he said.
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