Belgium: 90-year-old woman dies after contracting two variants of the Covid | Experts define it as an unprecedented case

Nail 90-year-old woman died from coronavirus in Belgium after having contracted two different variants of the virus simultaneously. Experts warned that this was an unprecedented case and an “underestimated” phenomenon.

“This is one of the first documented cases of co-infection with two disturbing variants of Sars-CoV-2 (Alpha, British and Beta, South African),” said molecular biologist Anne Vankeerberghen, author of a study cited in a press release. the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (Eccmid).

March 3, 2021, wife -What had not been vaccinated against the coronavirus- he was admitted to a hospital in the Belgian city of Aalst after having fell several times. As a case study presented to Eccmid and peer reviewed reports, when the patient arrived at the health center, she was diagnosed with covid-19.

When admitted to hospital, the woman had “a good level of oxygen saturation and no signs of respiratory distress”. However, “he quickly developed worsening respiratory symptoms and died five days later”, says the Eccmid statement.

According to the biologist from the OLV hospital in Aalst, “it is difficult to say whether the coinfection with two variants played a role in the rapid deterioration of the patient’s condition”. Through testing and sequencing, they were able to determine that the woman was suffering from two variants of the virus at the same time: Alpha and Beta.

“The two variants circulated in Belgium at the time (March 2021), then the woman was probably co-infected with two different people. Unfortunately, we don’t know how it got contaminated, ”Vankeerberghen added.

The researcher pointed out that to date, “there were no other cases published”It is therefore “crucial” to continue to sequence and study a “probably underestimated” phenomenon.

Two cases of people infected with two different variants present in Brazil were reported in January in a study, which “has not yet been published by a scientific journal,” according to Eccmid.