The Briton remained infected with COVID for 505 days.
A UK patient with a weak immune system has been found to have been infected with COVID-19 for nearly a year and a half, scientists reported.
There is no way to know for sure if it was the longest-lived COVID-19 infection because not everyone is tested. But at 505 days, “it’s probably the longest reported infection,” said Dr. Luke Blagdon Snell, an infectious disease expert at Guy’s & St. Thomas ’NHS.
The Snell team plans to present several “ongoing” cases of COVID-19 at a meeting of infectious diseases in Portugal. Their study investigated what mutations arise – and if variants evolve – in people who have been infected for a long time. It includes nine patients who tested positive for the virus for at least eight weeks.
Everyone had a weak immune system – from organ transplants, HIV, cancer to treatments for other diseases. None were identified for privacy reasons. Repeated tests showed that their infections lasted an average of about 73 days. Two of them had the virus for more than a year.
Previously, the researchers said, the longest known case confirmed through a PCR test lasted 335 days.
Otherwise, researchers hope that through this data will help people defeat the virus as soon as possible.
