Belgian Medical researchers It was confirmed on Sunday that a 90-year-old woman who had not been vaccinated died in March, the first death caused by two recorded simultaneous COVID-19 mutations.
Woman is sick Alpha and Beta variantsAlpha was first discovered in the UK, and Beta was first discovered in South Africa. The researchers said that they did not know how the patient was infected, and she may have contracted the mutation from two different people.
Dr. Anne Vankeerberghen, a molecular biologist and author of the study published by the European Conference on Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, said: “This is the first documented infection with two variants of SARS-CoV-2 of interest. One of the cases.”, said in a statement.
After the patient fell continuously, she was taken to a hospital near Brussels. She was later tested for coronavirus, but did not show symptoms. A statement stated that the woman “rapidly worsened respiratory symptoms and died five days later.”
Vankeerberghen said it was “difficult to say” to what extent these two variants contributed to the rapid deterioration of the woman’s health.
Both Alpha and Beta variants are already circulating in Belgium.
Although rare, this finding proves that unvaccinated people may be susceptible to double infection. More research is needed to understand the extent of having two variants at the same time.
Maitreyi Shivkumar, a senior lecturer in molecular biology at De Montfort University in Leicester, UK, wrote in March: “The evidence so far does not indicate that infection with more than one variant causes more serious disease.” conversation.
Researchers cannot fully confirm whether this is the only case of the two variants that caused the patient’s death. There were two similar cases in Brazil in January, but the results have not yet been published in scientific journals.
Unvaccinated Belgian woman infected with two variants of COVID at the same time https://t.co/u76yL3bitk pic.twitter.com/IoNhkxMs36
— Reuters (@路透社) July 11, 2021
