A Dutch man with the longest case of COVID infection ever recorded suffered from the sickness for a record 613 days, with the ailment mutating into a unique new variant that baffled medical researchers.
The 72-year-old unnamed patient was diagnosed with the omicron variant in February 2022, according to Time, citing research from the University of Amsterdam.
It is the longest time anyone has been infected with the virus, researchers said.
The patient, who had already been suffering from a blood disease before contracting COVID, immune system failed to produce enough white blood cells or antibodies to combat the virus despite receiving the vaccine multiple times.
While most people can overcome the coronavirus in a few weeks, anything medical professionals tried to help cure the patient from the virus wasn’t working.
Doctors quickly found that his body had become resistant to Sotrovimab — a monoclonal antibody for the early treatment of COVID-19 — after taking over two dozen nose and throat swabs while they searched to find him treatment.
They also discovered that the development of an anti-spike antibody in the first month was minimal and soon realized the patient’s immune system was incapable of ridding the virus.
The patient died in the hospital in the fall of 2023 due to his weakened immune system and underlying blood disorder.
However, researchers found that the virus had mutated nearly 50 times while festering in his body and eventually created an ultra-mutated variant, according to the outlet.
There were no signs that the Frankenstein-esque mutated variant infected other people.
Though a 20-month-long covid that mutated seems frightening, Magda Vergouwe, the medical student from the Amsterdam University Medical Center who will be presenting the case next week at the ESCMID Global Congress in Barcelona, said, “The duration of infection in this case is extreme.”
“Prolonged infections in immunocompromised patients are much more common compared to the general community,” Vergouwe said, according to The Sun. “This underscores the risk of persistent infection as unique viral variants may emerge due to extensive evolution.”
She recognizes the fine line between protecting the world from dangerous new variants and providing humane, supportive end-of-life care to severely ill patients.
“We emphasize the importance of continuing genomic surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 evolution in immunocompromised individuals with persistent infections given the potential public health threat of possibly introducing viral escape variants into the community,” Vergouwe said.
Scientists studying genomic data in wastewater have also discovered evidence that humans may have had heavily mutated coronaviruses for more than four years but were unaware, according to Time.
Vergouwe explained that the case is being added to reports of patients testing positive for the same infection for over a year, but she noted it was the longest case she’s ever seen on record.
The most extended case of COVID-19 ever recorded before this was from a British man who suffered from the virus for 505 days before dying.
Research has shown that 24.4% of American adults who received a positive COVID-19 test have experienced symptoms that persisted for three months or longer.
Previous research has found that long COVID was more common and severe in patients who were infected before the 2021 Omicron variant, unvaccinated or reinfected.
