69YO Virologist Voluntarily Contracts COVID-19 To Test His Immunity

Alexander Chepurnov, a researcher who used to work at the Vector Centre of Virology and Biotechnology, first contracted COVID-19 in February. He started feeling unwell, had a high fever, chest pain, and lost his sense of smell when he was on his skiing trip in France. At the time, he couldn’t get a coronavirus test. When he returned from his trip, he was diagnosed to have double pneumonia. Fortunately, he soon recovered. A month later, he was confirmed to be infected with the coronavirus via an antibody test.

Chepurnov, now working at the Institute of Clinical and Experimental Medicine said that he was the first in his team to be infected with COVID-19. His team started monitoring how the antibodies behaved. Through observation, they found out that these antibodies decreased fast. From the third month that Chepurnov felt sick, the antibodies weren’t detected anymore.

Chepurnov felt worried about his discovery. So he decided to expose himself to COVID-19 patients without any protection to be infected with the virus for the second time.

And the second infection confirmed his worst fear. His body’s defense collapsed six months right after the first infection. And this time, it was worse. The 69-year-old researcher was hospitalized because his oxygen saturation dropped below 93%. For five days straight, his body’s temperature rose over 39 Celsius degrees. He lost his sense of smell once again. His perception of taste also changed. His X-ray showed him to suffer from double pneumonia again.

But luckily, he recovered after two weeks. His experiment proves that people won’t have immunity to the novel coronavirus.

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