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A 71-year-old woman in Washington state was found to be transmitting particles of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus for 70 days after her initial infection, although she never showed the slightest symptom of Covid-19 during this time. The woman has a weakened immune system, as she suffers from blood cancer (leukemia), so her body has great difficulty in “cleaning” the virus.
Although scientists suspected that immunosuppressed humans and those with weakened immune systems generally transmitted coronavirus longer than other carriers, such a 70-day transmissibility case had never been found internationally. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimate that people with abnormal immune systems are no longer infected when about 20 days have passed after the initial infection, but this does not always appear to be the case.
The researchers, led by virologist Vincent Munster of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), who published the journal in the journal Cell Biology, said that the long-term elimination of infectious diseases some patients with the impaired immune system. “
“As the coronavirus continues to spread, more people with immunosuppressive disorders will become infected, and this is important to understanding how SARS-CoV-2 behaves in these populations,” said Dr. Munster.
The woman became infected in late February, at a clinic where she was treated for anemia due to her cancer, and was diagnosed with coronavirus on March 2. Since then, he has undergone dozens of tests and the virus has been continuously detected in his body for 105 days, while infectious virus particles, capable of transmitting the disease to other people, have been detected for at least 70 days. The inability of your immune system to “respond” to the virus was demonstrated by the fact that there were no antibodies against it in your blood.
Typically, Covid-19 patients are contagious for about eight days after the initial infection. The longest previous case was a patient who was infectious for 20 days.
The 71-year-old woman was treated twice with blood plasma from recovering patients, which contained antibodies to the coronavirus. Ultimately, it “cleared” the infection without it being clear whether the plasma treatment helped. The woman’s cure will be further studied in other immunosuppressed Covid-19 patients.
It also remains questionable why he showed no symptoms, despite his weakened immune system, as these patients are at increased risk of severe Covid-19 with pneumonia. Munster spoke of a “mystery”, although he noted that it may be an isolated case.
Doctors also performed genetic tests on the woman during the course of the infection and found that the coronavirus showed various mutations over time, but these did not affect her ability to reproduce. Still, none of the mutations gained an advantage over the others.
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