Woman found infected with two variants of Covid at the same time

A 90-year-old Belgian woman was found to have two variants of Covid-19 in her system simultaneously.

After undergoing laboratory tests, the two variants detected were Alpha and Beta types, first identified in the UK and South Africa.

Dr Anne Vankeerberghen, from the OLV Hospital in Aalst, Belgium, said: “This is one of the first documented cases of co-infection with two worrying Sar-CoV-2 variants.”

“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. Unfortunately, we don’t know how she got infected, ”she added.

On March 3, the elderly woman was admitted to a hospital in the Belgian city of Aalst, after numerous falls and therefore tested positive for the virus. She initially had no breathing problems, but quickly deteriorated and died five days later.

It is reported that she had not yet received a vaccine to help prevent transmission.

Similar cases

Although this is one of the first documented cases, doctors around the world are seeing similar cases and warning us that we need to be aware of it.

In January 2021, Brazilian scientists reported two people infected simultaneously with different variants, one being the gamma variant, the other of concern.

Meanwhile, in Portugal, a 17-year-old boy contracted another type of virus while recovering from a different variant.

Professor Lawrence Young, an expert in virology at the University of Warwick, said: “The detection of two dominant variants of concern in a single person is not a surprise – they could have been transmitted by a single infected person or by contact. with several infected people. people.”

Although vaccines offer some protection against the virus, Professor Lawrence Young says more research and case studies are needed to determine whether such infections compromise the effectiveness of vaccinations.

Currently in the UK, cases of Delta variants are on the rise, but there are still other worrisome variants.