London, Europe Brief News – A British man died after the longest COVID infection on record.
Doctors believe that the UK patient tested positive for a staggering 505 days.
The unidentified man, who had a weakened immune system, succumbed after suffering “one continuous infection” that lasted nearly 17 months, according to Dr. Luke Blagdon Snell, of Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust.
COVID throat-swab tests “were positive each time — the patient never had a negative test,” Snell added.
“And we can tell it was one continuous infection because the genetic signature of it, the information we got from sequencing the viral genome, was unique and constant in that patient,” the doctor said.
Snell said that “at 505 days, it certainly seems to be the longest reported infection.”
However, he conceded that “there’s no way to know for sure” because
“not everyone gets tested, especially on a regular basis like this case.”
Chronic infections like these need studying to improve our understanding of Covid and the risks it can pose, say experts.
The patient first caught Covid in early 2020. They had symptoms and the infection was confirmed with a PCR test.
They were in and out of hospital many times over the next 72 weeks, for both routine checks and care.
On each occasion – about 50 in all – they tested positive, meaning they still had Covid.
Prolonged infections are rare but important, say the researchers, because they might give rise to new variants of Covid – although that did not happen in this case, or other ones that they studied.
Dr Snell said: “The virus is still adapting to the human host when people are infected for a long time. It might provide an opportunity for Covid to accrue new mutations.
“Some of these patients that we have studied have mutations that have been seen in some variants of concern.”
