Orange with Media Services, published on Friday April 22, 2022 at 7:00 PM
This is the longest known case of infection to date. The patient remained positive for 16 months until his death.
The long covid is one of doctors’ fears for certain patients whose lives have been permanently changed.
One case in particular caught their attention: a patient who tested positive for Covid-19, that remained for 16 months until his deaththe longest known case of infection, according to a study devoted to the evolution of the virus in immunocompromised patients.
The patient, whose identity has not been released, had first tested positive in mid-2020 and had breathing problems. He remained positive on all tests (about 45) until his death 505 days later, Dr. Gaia Nebbia, co-author of the study, told AFP Friday.
This is the longest-known case of Covid infection, according to a press release from the European Congress of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, which will be held in Lisbon from April 23 to 26, where the research will be presented. The study, conducted by researchers from King’s College London and Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital London, looked at nine immunocompromised patients with ongoing infection with the virus between March 2020 and December 2021.
All were positive for at least eight weeks, two have been over a year† Of the nine patients, four died and four eventually recovered. In early 2022, one last patient was infected, 412 days after he first tested positive. “Immunocompromised patients with persistent infection have little chance of survival, and new treatment strategies are urgently needed to end their infection,” Nebbia said.
Many mutations
The aim of the study was to study the mutations of the virus in infected patients for months. One of the patients carried the virus 10 mutations appeared separately in several major variants, including Alpha, Gamma, and Omicron.
“We wanted to characterize viral evolution in those individuals who could accumulate mutations during their ongoing infection. This is one of the hypotheses for the emergence of variants,” explains Ms. Nebbia, pointing out that mutations of the virus were observed in five out of nine patients.
According to estimates from the National Statistics Office published Friday, 38.5 million people in England had Covid between the end of April 2020 and mid-February 2022, or 70% of the population.
