- The researchers found that the woman had contracted both the alpha variant, which first surfaced in the United Kingdom and the beta strain, first found in South Africa, reports Bloomberg.
PUBLISHED ON JUL 11, 2021 07:02 AM IST
Belgian researchers have found that a 90-year-old woman has died after becoming infected with two different strains of Covid-19, revealing another risk in the fight against the coronavirus disease.
The researchers found that the woman had contracted both the alpha variant, which first surfaced in the United Kingdom and the beta strain, first found in South Africa, reports Bloomberg.
In the first peer-reviewed analysis of an infection with multiple strains, scientists found that the infections probably came from separate people, according to a report published on Saturday and presented at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases.
The woman was admitted to a Belgian hospital earlier in March and tested positive for Covid-19 the same day. She received nursing care at home and hadn’t been vaccinated. Her respiratory symptoms rapidly worsened and she died five days later. When her respiratory samples were tested for variants of concern, both strains were found in two tests. The researchers could not say whether the co-infection played a role in rapid deterioration of her health.
Earlier in January, Brazilian scientists reported two cases of Covid-19 co-infection, but the study hasn’t yet been released in a scientific journal. Researchers have also previously found evidence of people becoming infected with multiple strains of influenza.
“The global occurrence of this phenomenon is probably underestimated due to limited testing for variants of concern and the lack of a simple way to identify co-infections with whole genome sequencing. Being alert to co-infections remains crucial,” said Anne Vankeerberghen, the lead author of the study and a molecular biologist from OLV Hospital in Aalst, Belgium.
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