GENEVA, April 28 (Sputnik) - After being accused of misleading the public, the World Health Organization (WHO) has walked back a newsworthy statement which claimed there was “no evidence” that patients who have recovered from the COVID-19 novel coronavirus will be resistant to a future infection.

A scientific brief on “‘Immunity passports’ in the context of COVID-19” was published by the WHO on Friday which pushed back against the idea that individuals with antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 - the virus that causes COVID-19 - could be granted a type of “immunity passport” or “risk-free certificate” by their governments, allowing them to travel or go back to work.

“As of 24 April 2020, no study has evaluated whether the presence of antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 confers immunity to subsequent infection by this virus in humans,” noted the WHO.

However, the agency’s social media team did not provide this context in a since-deleted tweet which simply stated, “There is currently no evidence that people who have recovered from [COVID-19] and have antibodies are protected from a second infection.” Though this statement is correct, it’s to be expected that there is not yet verified evidence of such an immunity to the novel coronavirus, as it is only a few months old.

The WHO highlighted the infamous tweet in a follow-up thread which better explained its statement on immunity.

Despite the WHO’s attempt to clear up the confusion on the following day, outlets had already picked up and disseminated the tweet alongside ominous headlines, like Bloomberg News’ "WHO Warns You May Catch Coronavirus More Than Once.”

Social media users also admonished the agency in the hours the tweet remained up.