Iloilo City Vice Mayor Jeffrey Ganzon contracted the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) for the second time.
In an interview, Ganzon said his positive RT-PCR (reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction) test result came out on Tuesday, June 1.
The vice mayor first tested positive for COVID-19 in August last year. He was hospitalized.
Ganzon said aside from him, some members of their household, including their 23-year-old female helper, also got infected with SARS-CoV-2, a causative agent of COVID-19.
The infected family members are his wife Girlie, their daughters Dr. Niña Ganzon, a barangay official in San Antonio, Molo district and Rara Ganzon, an Iloilo Provincial Government employee, and their two grandchildren aged 10 and 18 years old.
According to Ganzon, they are experiencing mild cough and colds.
The vice mayor said it is his “moral obligation” to share to the public his health condition.
REINFECTION MORE COMMON IN OLDER EPOPLE
Based on a study, older people are more prone to reinfection than younger people.
Published in the Lancet medical journal on March 17, 2021, the study found that people over the age of 65 had only 47 percent protection against repeat infection, compared to 80 percent protection for younger people.
“Our study confirms what a number of others appeared to suggest: reinfection with COVID-19 is rare in younger, healthy people, but the elderly are at greater risk of catching it again,” said Steen Ethelberg of Denmark’s Statens Serum Institut.
Ethelberg is one of the authors of the study.IMT
