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Brazilian researchers have reported cases of patients infected with two strains of the coronavirus variants at a time, as part of efforts to track the spread of emerging variants across the country.
The results were published ahead of peer review this week in the medRxiv preprint server.
The infections were found in two patients in their 30s, both of whom recovered without requiring hospitalization. One developed a cough and the other had a headache, cough and sore throat.
“We were the first to identify two independent co-infection events caused by the appearance of B.1.1.28 (E484K) with lines B.1.1.248 or B.1.91”, wrote the authors of the study.
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The Brazil P.1 variant is a branch of the B.1.1.28 lineage, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), with the first U.S. case of the P.1 variant identified in Minnesota earlier this week.
The team of researchers warned that co-infections may give way to more rapid emergence of strains.
“These co-infections can generate combinations and generate new variants even faster than happened,” study principal investigator Fernando Spilki, a virologist at the University of Feevale in the United States, told Reuters. ‘State of Rio Grande do Sul.
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Spilki said co-infections present an additional evolutionary route for the new virus. He added that the cases highlight a growing pandemic in Brazil, as co-infections can only occur under a high degree of transmission.
It should be noted that the E484K mutation on the virus spike protein has previously been shown to escape the neutralizing power by antibodies in convalescent plasma treatment, although these results are preliminary.
“Nonetheless, the limited resources and small number of samples sequenced in Brazil challenge the continued monitoring of viral evolution and the appearance of new mutations in the country,” wrote the study authors.
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