.jpg "Anomalies discovered at the bottom of the Indian Ocean, possibly the location of the MH370 crash")
.jpg "Real estate market in the south of Hai Duong city is bustling")
.jpg "Extremely dangerous forest fire risk in Kinh Mon, Chi Linh")
-ac017d3d3ce25d3405471795d6bb26f0.jpg "Gia Loc needs over 10 billion VND to invest in renovating and expanding landfills.")
Submit a comment
Bloomberg reported that researchers in the Netherlands discovered a patient who had Covid-19 for more than 613 days, before dying from a relapse of an underlying condition.
According to researchers, the 20-month duration of COVID-19 is the longest known.
The 72-year-old had a complicated health history. He had previously undergone a stem cell transplant to treat a form of leukemia, but was later diagnosed with a different type of cancer — diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, according to IFL Science.
The drug he was taking caused severe immunosuppression, putting him at constant risk of severe COVID-19. Previously, according to Bloomberg, the patient also failed to mount an immune response to multiple COVID-19 vaccines, and was infected with the Omicron variant in February 2022.
For more than 600 days, the patient remained infected with the virus and was hospitalized several times. But very soon, just 21 days after the first treatment, signs of the virus's transformation began to be seen.
Detailed analysis of samples collected from more than 20 nasopharyngeal swabs showed that the coronavirus developed resistance to sotrovimab, a monoclonal antibody treatment for COVID-19, within weeks, according to scientists at the University of Amsterdam's Center for Experimental and Molecular Medicine.
The virus then produced more than 50 mutations, some of which showed the virus was adapting to evade the human immune system.
Scientists studying genetic data collected from wastewater samples have reported evidence of individuals in the community shedding severe mutations of the coronavirus for more than four years. The study suggests that persistent infections may also lead to patients experiencing prolonged COVID-19 symptoms.
This case highlights the risk of persistent SARS-CoV-2 infection in immunocompromised individuals, and the importance of continued genomic surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 evolution in immunocompromised individuals with persistent COVID-19."
The authors of the study
Persistent infection is a well-known phenomenon with SARS-CoV-2, IFL Science added. Some recent studies suggest that up to 3 out of 100 COVID-19 cases can last longer than a month. The longer the virus replicates and grows in the body, the more opportunities it has to create mutations that escape the immune system. That’s one theory behind the emergence of the Omicron variant.
Not every mutant strain becomes a variant of concern, but it is important to monitor these persistent infections, along with providing the best possible care to patients who may be facing other medical problems.
The patient was an elderly man who was immunocompromised due to pre-existing conditions. He was hospitalized in Amsterdam, Netherlands, in February 2022 with COVID-19. He had been consistently positive for the coronavirus until his death in October 2023.
Researchers at the University of Amsterdam will present the results of this study at the conference of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases in Barcelona (Spain) held from April 27 to 30.
