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The unvaccinated woman, who lived alone and was cared for at home, was admitted to the OLV hospital in Alst, Belgium, for other reasons, and received COVID-19 the same day. Although her blood oxygen levels were initially good, the woman’s condition rapidly deteriorated and she died five days later.
When medical staff conducted an investigation into a possible infection with an alarming strain, the woman was found to be infected with the alpha strain and beta variant, first detected in the United Kingdom (UK), originally detected in South Africa.
Both strains were prevalent in Belgium at the time, so the woman was likely infected with two different strains from two different people, said OLV Hospital molecular biologist Anne Vankeerberghen, who led the study. “Unfortunately, we don’t know how it got infected.”
Vankeerberghen said it was difficult to say whether the infection in the two strains had contributed to the rapid deterioration of the patient’s condition.
The study, which has not yet been submitted to a medical journal, will be presented to the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases.
Although Mr. Vankeerberghen’s press release states that similar cases of multiple strains have not been reported in journals so far, the specialist added that “this phenomenon is probably underestimated.” This is due to limited testing for the strains in question, he said, calling for faster PCR tests for known viral mutations.
In January, researchers in Brazil announced that two people were simultaneously infected with two different strains of coronavirus, but the study had not yet been published in any scientific journal.
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