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Scientists warn that it is possible to contract two strains of COVID-19 at the same time after the death of an unvaccinated woman who had been infected with different variants.
The 90-year-old woman was admitted to a Belgian hospital to treat injuries from a fall and tested positive for COVID that day, according to a report from the European Congress on Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases.
Although she had no symptoms on admission and displayed good oxygen saturation, she quickly developed breathing problems that quickly worsened and died less than a week later.
When breathing test samples were returned, it was found to be positive for Alpha, the UK-native strain known as B.1.1.7, and Beta, the variant first detected. in South Africa known as B.1.351.
“These two variants were circulating in Belgium at the time, so it is likely that the lady was co-infected with different viruses from two different people,” the report said. “Unfortunately, we don’t know how she got infected.”
The report notes that it is difficult to say “whether the co-infection of the two variants of concern played a role in the patient’s rapid deterioration.
“So far, there have been no other published cases. However, the global occurrence of this phenomenon is likely underestimated due to the limited number of tests for the variants of concern and the lack of a simple way to identify co-infections with whole genome sequencing. “
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