A woman in the United Kingdom died of COVID after contracting two variants at the same time, according to reports, the woman was infected with both viruses by different people.
A woman died of COVID after contracting two variants at the same time
The patient came to the hospital because she was repeatedly falling. She was breathing well and her blood oxygen levels were good. But tests showed that the 90-year-old Belgian woman had COVID-19, and not just one strain, but two variants of the virus.
She died in the hospital in just five days after her respiratory system deteriorated rapidly.
“The woman had the alpha and beta variants of the coronavirus (which were first detected in the United Kingdom and South Africa, respectively), according to a paper presented over the weekend at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases.
The woman was likely infected by two different people.
“Both variants were circulating in Belgium at the time, so it is likely that the woman was co-infected with different viruses from two different people,” Anne Vankeerberghen of OLV Hospital in Aalst, Belgium, said in a press release.
Before she became ill, the woman lived alone in her home, where she received nursing care.
But a screening test for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, gave a “very positive” result. Secondary tests confirmed the unusual results.
Although this case is considered the first confirmed case of a dual infection, Vankeerberghen and the other investigators note that similar cases have been reported.
In Brazil, for example, people with two variants were found in their system earlier this year, but that study has not yet been published.
