MOSCOW, November 16. /TASS/. Not a single case of reinfection with the novel coronavirus has been confirmed in Russia, Alexander Gorelov, a deputy director of the Central Research Institute of Epidemiology, said on Monday.

"By now, documented cases of reinfection are very rare. There is not a single such case in Russia," he said in an interview with the Rossiya-24 television channel.

According to Gorelov, reinfection with the novel coronavirus is possible in cases of primary of secondary immunodeficiency stemming from immunosuppressive therapy against hemato-oncological or rheumatologic diseases when the antibody response may be lacking.

The expert noted however that reinfection with the coronavirus is possible in case the virus genome mutates to an extent that a new type of the infection emerges. "In this case, humankind will face, and I hope it will never happen, the second catch-up wave," he added.

Earlier, Alexander Chepunov of the Federal Research Center for Fundamental and Translational Medicine said that reinfection with the novel coronavirus could happen in six months after the first one, with the run of the disease after reinfection not differing from the primary infection. However, in his words, it is too early to make definite conclusions due to the scarcity of such cases.