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Apparently, it is possible to become infected with different variants of the coronavirus at the same time.
Belgian scientists are tracking down a disturbing finding: There are covid patients who contract different variants of the virus at the same time. These are still isolated cases because studies are lacking. But experts believe co-infections are an underestimated phenomenon.
In Belgium, a 90-year-old woman died after being infected with two different variants of the coronavirus at the same time. According to scientists, the unvaccinated woman lived alone at home, where she was cared for by a nursing service. After several falls, she was admitted to a hospital in Aalst in early March, where she tested positive for the coronavirus the same day, they said.
Initially, the oxygen saturation of her blood was good, but then the patient’s condition rapidly deteriorated and she died within five days, according to a statement from the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. Tests for coronavirus variants had shown that she was infected with both the alpha and beta variants of the coronavirus. “Both variants were circulating in Belgium at the time, so it is likely that the lady was co-infected with different viruses from two different people,” said molecular biologist Anne Vankeerberghen of OLV Hospital in Aalst, who led the study.
Whether this co-infection was responsible for the rapid deterioration in the old lady’s health is difficult to say, Vankeerberghen explained. Although there have been no cases of such co-infections published in journals to date, she said she believes it is “probably an underestimated phenomenon” because of insufficient testing for variants.
In January, scientists from Brazil had reported that two people had been infected with two different strains of the coronavirus at the same time, but that study also had not yet been published in a scientific journal.
The Belgian study makes it clear “that further studies are needed to determine whether infection with multiple variants of concern affects the clinical course of covid-19 and whether this in any way affects the effectiveness of vaccination,” said virologist Lawrence Young of the University of Warwick.
Source: ntv.de, mau/AFP/picture: pixabay.com
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