Woman dies of COVID after contracting two variants at the same time: Coronavirus updates: NPR

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Scientists say that a Belgian woman contracted two different types of coronavirus at the same time, including beta. Spike beta protein is shown here in a scientific illustration. Juan Gaertner / Getty Images / Science Photo Library Hide caption

Toggle Caption Juan Gaertner/Getty Images/Science Photo Library

Scientists say that a Belgian woman contracted two different types of coronavirus at the same time, including beta. Spike beta protein is shown here in a scientific illustration.

Joan Gartner/Getty Images/Science Photo Library

The patient came to the hospital because she was falling out frequently. She was breathing well, and the oxygen levels in her blood were fine. But tests showed that the 90-year-old Belgian woman had COVID-19 – not just one strain, but two different types of the virus. She died in hospital in just five days after a rapid deterioration in her respiratory system.

“To our knowledge, this is one of the first reports of a double infection” with two different types of coronavirus of concern, the researchers said.

The woman had both alpha and beta variants of the coronavirus (they were first detected in the UK and South Africa, respectively), according to a paper presented over the weekend at the European Conference on Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases.

The woman may have been infected by two separate persons

“These two types were circulating in Belgium at the time, so it’s possible that the woman was infected with different viruses from two different people,” Anne Vankerbergen of OLV Hospital in Aalst, Belgium, said in a press release.

“Unfortunately, we don’t know how she was infected,” added Vankeerberghen, a molecular biologist and lead author of the report.

Before she got sick, the woman lived alone in her home, receiving nursing care. Her previous medical history did not include any red flags, according to Vankerbergen and her co-authors.

But a test for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, returned a “very positive” result. Follow-up PCR tests for variants of concern identified the two strains of coronavirus in her system. Secondary tests confirmed the unusual results.

While the case is seen as the first confirmed case of a double infection, Vankerbergen and other researchers note that similar cases have been reported. In Brazil, for example, people were found to have two variants in their regimen early this year, but this study has yet to be published. In the past, the researchers say, influenza patients were found to have been infected with two different strains of influenza virus.

Testing for coronavirus variants in COVID-19 patients is routine at OLV Hospital. While the researchers describe the woman’s case as “exceptional,” they say that more large-scale testing of variables of concern “would likely identify more mixed infections and could lead to a better understanding of their impact on disease and treatment.”

Variables complicate the fight against COVID-19

Variables of the coronavirus have been blamed for driving the local or regional rise of new COVID-19 cases in the United States, even as high vaccination rates for cases have declined in many areas.

In April, the Biden administration announced a major push to boost testing of variants.

NPR reported at the time that “US public health officials are operating with incomplete information due to an inadequate viral genome surveillance system.”

Health experts say it is critical to identify the strains of the virus responsible for the thousands of US “breakouts,” as the virus manages to infect vaccinated people.

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