Yes, You Can Contract 2 Coronavirus Strains at the Same Time: What to Know
After the
case study of an unvaccinated older woman found to have acquired both the alpha and beta variants of COVID-19 was presented at this year’s European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (
ECCMID 2021), experts confirmed it is possible to have two variants of COVID-19.
On March 3, a woman was admitted to a hospital in Belgium for treatment of injuries from a fall. Following a procedural test, she was found to be positive for the virus, according to a
press release from ECCMID.
At the time, she showed no symptoms of COVID-19 but rapidly developed respiratory problems and died 5 days later.
When her respiratory sample was tested for variants of concern (VOCs) using the PCR test, doctors discovered she had two different strains of COVID-19, the B.1.1.7 (alpha) originating in the United Kingdom, and B.1.351 (beta), first detected in South Africa.
“This is one of the first documented cases of coinfection with two SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern,” lead author and molecular biologist Dr. Anne Vankeerberghen of the OLV Hospital in Aalst, Belgium, said in the
statement.
“Both these variants were circulating in Belgium at the time,” Vankeerberghen continued. “So it is likely that the lady was coinfected with different viruses from two different people. Unfortunately, we don’t know how she became infected.”
Not the first time dual infection identified
Similar cases of dual infection have been detected, although experts believe the Belgian case is the first documented, so far.
Scientists in Brazil
reported two patients had two COVID-19 variants at the beginning of the year — one of them the VOC called gamma.
A teenager was recently treated by researchers in Portugal and appeared to have a second type of COVID-19 while recovering from a preexisting COVID infection.
A recently documented patient case study finds infection with two variants of COVID-19 is possible. Although researchers still don’t know how the patient was infected, experts say that exposure to people carrying different COVID-19 variants can result in this type of infection.
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