Covid-19 patients tested positive for 505 days before death, making it the longest-known corovirus infection, say UK researchers.
It is believed that the previous longest known infection lasted 335 days.
Most people who become infected with the virus can clear the infection naturally, but this patient has a severely weakened immune system and many comorbid conditions – other conditions.
They first started showing symptoms and tested positive in early 2020 and repeatedly issued a positive test until 2021 before dying.
Researchers who have studied the virus for nine years ვიდed In patients LondonAlso provide evidence that new variants of Covid may occur in immunocompromised individuals.
Presentation of their details at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) Lisbon, PortugalThey describe details of one of the first occult Covid infections – cases where a patient was thought to have cleared the virus with a negative test but was later found to have an ongoing infection.
The team, from King’s College London and the Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, were interested in how the virus changes in immunocompromised individuals over time.
This provides evidence that mutations found in disturbed variants occur in immunocompromised patients and thus confirms the idea that new variants of viruses may develop in immunocompromised individuals.
Dr. Luke Blagdon Snell
The first author, Dr. Luke Blagdon Snell, of the Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, said: “New variants of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, emerged during the pandemic.
“Some of these options are more easily transmitted between people, causing more serious illnesses or making vaccines less effective.
“One theory is that these viral variants develop in individuals whose immune systems are weakened by an illness or medical treatment such as chemotherapy who may have a persistent SARS-CoV-2 infection.
“We wanted to find out which mutations occur and if variants develop in people with persistent infections.”
The study included nine immunocompromised patients who tested positive for the virus for at least eight weeks.
The infection lasted an average of 73 days, but two patients had a persistent infection for more than a year.
Patients who were screened from March 2020 to December 2021 had a weakened immune system due to organ transplantation; HIVCures for cancer or other diseases.
The analysis showed that five out of nine patients developed at least one mutation that is seen in the anxiety variants.
Some people have developed multiple mutations associated with anxiety variants such as alpha, delta, and omicron.
The researchers found that one patient’s virus contained 10 mutations that arose separately in concern variants such as alpha, gamma, and omicron.
Dr. Snell and colleagues said: “This provides evidence that mutations found in disturbed variants occur in immunocompromised patients and thus support the idea that new variants of the virus may develop in immunocompromised individuals.
“It’s important to note that none of the individuals in our paper have developed new options that have become widespread concerns.
In addition, although this paper shows that variants may occur in immunocompromised individuals, whether previous variants of concern such as Alpha, Delta, and Omicron arose in this way remains unknown.
Five of the nine patients survived and one still has the infection. At the time of their last observation in early 2022, this patient had been infected for 412 days.
Humans have been treated with monoclonal antibodies, but if they are still tested positive at the next appointment, researchers suggest they are likely to go through the longest known infection in 505 days, as described in a new study.
