Photo: IANS
Guwahati, Nov 4: British researchers announced Friday ta they have cured a man who was continually infected with COVID-19 virus for 411 days by analysing the genetic code of his particular virus for the treatment.
The persistent COVID infection, which is different to long COVID or repeated bouts of the disease, occurs in a small number of patients with already weakened immune systems.
The man, who has a weakened immune system due to a kidney transplant, caught Covid in December 2020 and continued to test positive until January this year. To discover whether he had contracted COVID numerous times or if it was one persistent infection, the researchers used a rapid genetic analysis with nanopore sequencing technology.
The test, which can deliver results in as little as 24 hours, showed the man had an early B.1 variant which was dominant in late 2020 but has since been replaced by newer strains.
As the patient had this early variant, the researchers gave him a combination of the casirivimab and imdevimab monoclonal antibodies from Regeneron. Like most other antibody treatments, the treatment is no longer widely used because it is ineffective against newer variants such as Omicron.
But it successfully cured the man because he was battling a variant from an earlier phase of the pandemic.
This was published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, a team of researchers at Guy's & St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust and King's College London has discussed about how the man overcame his infection after 13 months.
These patients can test positive for months or even years with the infection "rumbling along the whole time," said Luke Snell, a physician specialising in infectious diseases at Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust.
The infections can pose a serious threat because around half of patients also have persistent symptoms such as lung inflammation, Mr Snell told adding that much remains unknown about the condition.
The man is believed to have had the longest brush with the COVID virus than anybody else in the world and survived.