Posted: 18:30, 5 July 2022 | Updated: 18:31, July 5, 2022
An unnamed Connecticut resident has been infected with COVID-19 for well over a year with scientists discovering that the virus has mutated multiple times within them. Researchers at Yale University discovered the patient, who is in his 60s and suffers from a type of lymphoma, after identifying cases of a variant thought to be extinct. Upon further inspection, they found that the person had three different subtypes of the virus in their bloodstream – signaling that they were carrying the mutation. This is the largest Covid infection discovered by health experts and adds to growing evidence that the virus mutates in immunocompromised people before continuing to spread to others. An unnamed man in his 60s, also suffering from lymphoma, had an active Covid infection for more than 470 days. They also have three different generations of the virus circulating through their blood (file photo) The case study is currently available in preprint on MedRxiv and is pending peer review prior to publication. Surveillance of Covid variants in Connecticut, where Yale is based, discovered that a B.1,517 strain that had not been seen worldwide for some time last year was circulating in the area. All of the infections were traced to a patient who lived in an undisclosed part of the state. Further testing found that they were suffering from “chronic Covid” and had tested positive for the virus for at least 471 days. At the time of publication on Saturday, the patient was still positive for the virus. They also found that the virus was rapidly mutating in their bodies at a rate unusual for a typical infection. It was mutating twice as fast, and as a result three completely separate, distinct genotypes of the virus had formed. “This chronic infection led to accelerated evolution and divergence of SARS-CoV-2, a mechanism that potentially contributes to the emergence of genetically diverse variants of SARS-CoV-2, including Omicron, Delta, and Alpha,” the researchers wrote. The case is one of the first – and longest – infections of “chronic Covid”. While “long Covid” is a phenomenon that experts have known about for some time, this condition occurs when a person still feels symptoms of the virus even after their infection has cleared. However, this infection is different, as the unnamed person has an active case of Covid and continues to be positive for the virus for long periods of time. It also adds to the growing body of literature indicating that the virus takes advantage of immunocompromised individuals specifically to mutate. Last year, doctors in the UK found that a man who also suffered from lymphoma had the virus rapidly mutating while in his body. He would later succumb to his illness. This finding opened up the theory that the virus was able to create “escape mutations” that allowed it to evade antibodies and remain in the genetic code. In the intervening time, there have been other scattered reports of people with serious comorbidities, such as cancer, showing rapid mutations of the virus. It’s impossible to know how many people carry a rapidly mutating virus, however, and there’s little experts can do to stop Covid’s frequent mutation once it finds the right host. The rapid mutation of the virus is a danger, as each time a drastic new version of Covid emerges it takes the world by storm and leaves officials scrambling to deal with a new threat. When the Delta variant, which originated in India, broke out around the world in the spring and summer of 2021, it caused one of the deadliest outbreaks of the virus to date. Late last year, the Omicron variant tore through the earth, causing virtually every country it touched to suffer record levels, while also denying much of the immunity protection Americans had.
