In a new study from the Pasteur-USP Scientific Platform, researchers found in a 38-year-old man who manifested mild symptoms of COVID-19 for 20 days, the novel coronavirus continued to be detected and to undergo mutations for 232 days.
If he had not been given continuous medical care, maintained social distancing and worn a mask, he could have spread the virus throughout these seven months.
The atypical case of infection by COVID-19 was part of a study involving 38 Brazilian patients followed on a weekly basis between April and November 2020.
The study serves as an alert regarding the risk of limiting quarantine for COVID-19 patients to seven, ten or even 14 days after they test positive, as initially prescribed by protocols to combat the disease.
It also reinforces the importance of vaccination, social distancing, and mask-wearing.
In the study, the team found among the 38 cases we tracked, two men and a woman were atypical in the sense that the virus was continuously detected in their bodies for more than 70 days.
This means that about 8% of people infected by SARS-CoV-2 may be able to transmit the virus for more than two months, without necessarily manifesting any symptoms during the final stage of the infection.
The risk appears to be even greater for people with compromised immune systems.
The patient underwent weekly tests that detected the persistence of the infection, and samples of the virus were regularly sequenced to show that it was not a case of reinfection and that the virus not only continued to replicate but was also mutating.
The team says it’s important to observe patients like this one because doctors can learn more about how the virus mutates and which mutations can give rise to variants of concern.
The patient in the study was infected by lineage B.1.1.28, which entered Brazil at the start of 2020.
The researchers did not detect mutations in the virus isolated from the patient that could justify classifying it as more transmissible or more resistant to the immune system.
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The study is published in Frontiers in Medicine, and was conducted by Marielton dos Passos Cunha et al.
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