News Scan for Apr 21, 2022

Patient contracted Omicron just 20 days after Delta strain of COVID-19A 31-year-old woman from Spain contracted COVID-19 twice within 3 weeks, despite being fully vaccinated and recently receiving a booster shot, according to a case report that will be presented at the upcoming European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) meeting.

The case provides evidence that the Omicron strain is able to evade previous immunity.The woman, a healthcare worker, first tested positive in December of 2021—12 days after receiving a booster dose of vaccine—during screening at work.

She had no symptoms and isolated for 10 days. On Jan 10, 20 days after her first positive, she tested positive again after developing fever and a cough.The 20-day gap between infections is the shortest recorded.Whole-genome sequencing showed the first infection was caused by the Delta strain, and the second Omicron."This case highlights the potential of the Omicron variant to evade the previous immunity acquired either from a natural infection with other variants or from vaccines," said Gemma Recio, MD, of the Institut Cataa de Salut in Tarragona, Spain, in a press release. "In other words, people who have had COVID-19 cannot assume they are protected against reinfection, even if they have been fully vaccinated."Apr 20 ECCMID press releaseAntibiotic prescribing fell 23% to 38% in Australia during COVID-19Data being presented at this month's European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) meeting and published in Clinical Infectious Diseases reveal that antibiotics prescribed in Australia fell 23% to 38% during COVID-19.Australian researchers analyzed a representative sample of 10% of outpatient antibiotic