Patient had COVID for record 613 days, accumulated over 50 mutations from virus before death

health

by Richard Pollina

A Dutch man with the longest coronavirus infection in history was ill for a record 613 days, and his symptoms mutated into a unique new variant that baffled medical researchers.

According to , the 72-year-old anonymous patient was diagnosed with the Omicron variant in February 2022. timeciting research from the University of Amsterdam.

According to researchers, this is the longest period of time that humans have been infected with the virus.

The patient already had a blood disorder before contracting the coronavirus, but despite multiple vaccinations, his immune system was unable to produce enough white blood cells and antibodies to fight the virus. .

Most people can overcome the coronavirus within a few weeks, but everything medical professionals have tried to cure patients from the virus has been ineffective.

Doctors soon discovered that his body had developed a resistance to sotrovimab. monoclonal antibody This came after more than 20 nose and throat swabs were taken in a bid to find a cure for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

They also noticed that the development of anti-spike antibodies during the first month was minimal, and soon patients’ immune systems were unable to eliminate the virus.

The patient died in the hospital in the fall of 2023 due to a weakened immune system and underlying blood disease.

However, the report said researchers discovered that while it was festering inside his body, the virus mutated nearly 50 times, eventually creating a hypermutant strain.

There was no evidence that the Frankenstein-like variant had infected other people.

The 20-month-old variant of the new coronavirus sounds scary, said Magda Bergouwe, a medical student at Amsterdam University Medical Center who will present the case at the ESCMID World Congress in Barcelona next week. The case is extreme. ”

“Long-term infections in immunocompromised patients are much more common than in the general population,” Virgouwe said. Sun. “This highlights the risk of persistent infection, as widespread evolution may result in the emergence of unique virus variants.”

She recognizes that there is a fine line between protecting the world from dangerous new variants and providing humane and supportive end-of-life care for critically ill patients. ing.

“The importance of continuing genomic surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 evolution in immunocompromised patients with persistent infections, given the potential public health threat of potentially introducing viral escape variants into the community.” ,” Vergouwe said.

Scientists studying genomic data in wastewater have also found evidence that humans may have been infected with a highly mutated coronavirus for more than four years but were unaware of it. Announced. time.

Virgouwe explained that this case is in addition to reports of patients testing positive for the same infection over a period of more than a year, making this the longest case she has ever seen. Stated.

The most widespread case of coronavirus ever recorded was in a British man who suffered from the virus for 505 days before dying.

Research shows that 24.4% of American adults who tested positive for COVID-19 experienced symptoms that lasted more than three months.

Previous studies have found that long-term COVID-19 infections are more common and severe in patients who were infected before the 2021 Omicron variant and have not been vaccinated or reinfected. did.