Epidemiologic characteristics of cases with reinfection, recurrence, and hospital readmission due to COVID‐19: A systematic review and meta‐analysis

Abstract

Recent studies reported that some recovered COVID‐19 patients have tested positive for virus nucleic acid again. A systematic search was performed in Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus, and Google Scholar up to March 6, 2021. The pooled estimation of reinfection, recurrence, and hospital readmission among recovered COVID‐19 patients was 3, 133, and 75 per 1000 patients, respectively. The overall estimation of reinfection among males compared to females was greater. The prevalence of recurrence in females compared to males was more common. Also, hospital readmission between sex groups was the same. There is uncertainty about long‐term immunity after SARS‐Cov‐2 infection. Thus, the possibility of reinfection and recurrence after recovery is not unexpected. In addition, there is a probability of hospital readmission due to adverse events of COVID‐19 after discharge. However, with mass vaccination of people and using the principles of prevention and appropriate management of the disease, frequent occurrence of the disease can be controlled.

SARS-CoV-2 reinfection and COVID-19 severity

“…Published data on the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 reinfection highlighted their low rates, ranging from 0.1% to 0.65% [ 5 , 16–18 ]. In our study, we found that overall, 0.38% of patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection diagnosed at our institute had sustained a prior infection with this virus.…”

“…In a study conducted among 829 patients recovered from COVID-19, 87 had no detectable IgG against SARS-CoV-2, of whom 25 (28.7%) were reinfected 1–3 months after their first infection, while there was just one case of reinfection 4.5 months after initial recovery among those with detectable IgG (0.1%) [ 4 ]. Recently, a meta-analysis showed that the pooled estimation of reinfection among recovered patients was 0.3%, with a high heterogeneity among studies, and it was more common among male patients [ 5 ].…”

BNT162b2 vaccination induces durable SARS-CoV-2–specific T cells with a stem cell memory phenotype

“…Mass-vaccination against COVID-19 is effective and protects against severe COVID-19 in real-world settings (34,35). Decreases of antibody levels and increases of breakthrough infections point to waning immunity of vaccination over time (36)(37)(38)(39). However, despite the decline in antibody levels, protection from severe disease and hospitalization remains high (40,41), suggesting that persisting cellular immunity drives the immune response and prevents viral dissemination when antibodies disappear.…”

Radiological Analysis of COVID-19 Using Computational Intelligence: A Broad Gauge Study

“…Several works have been carried out to improve the performance of these predictive models using evaluation metrics [ 130 , 131 ]. Similarly, many studies have been conducted regarding the COVID-19 case readmission rates and factors [ 132 , 133 ].…”