In the UK, a corona patient was continuously infected with the corona virus for a record 16 months.
A British research team reported on a new study that will be presented on Saturday at the European Congress of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases in Lisbon. The previous record was 335 days.
For the study, between March 2020 and December 2021, researchers from King’s College London and Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital London examined the cases of nine patients whose immune systems were weakened due to organ transplants, HIV, cancer or other causes. drug treatments. All were positive for at least eight weeks, two for more than a year.
Five out of nine patients survived
Five of the nine patients survived, two of them after antibody and antiviral therapy. The fifth person was still infected at the last follow-up in early 2022, even after treatment, and had had Covid-19 for 412 days. If she still tests positive at her next appointment, she will surpass the record 505 days, according to the researchers.
The team found that the virus in the nine corona patients in London changed over time. Five of them developed at least one mutant. In one patient they found ten mutations, which occurred separately in the alpha, delta and omicron variants. The researchers now suspect that immunocompromised patients accumulate mutations over the course of their ongoing infection, which could result in the emergence of new variants.
The situation shows the urgent need for new corona treatments for immunocompromised patients, virologist and study co-author Gaia Nebbia said Friday. “Immunocompromised patients with an ongoing infection have little chance of survival and new treatment strategies are urgently needed to end the infection.”