Connecticut cancer patient is world’s longest known COVID sufferer: 60-year-old man was infected for more than 450 days as the virus mutated three times in him
- An unnamed Connecticut cancer patient has been infected with COVID-19 for at least 471 days
- The researchers traced infections from a thought-extinct lineage of the virus back to a 60-year-old man
- Upon further investigation, experts also found that three different lineages of the virus were circulating in the person’s blood
- Experts fear the virus mutates rapidly in the bodies of immunocompromised people because it can evade some immune defenses
By Mansoor Shaheen, Deputy US Health Editor for Dailymail.Com
Posted: 18:30, 5 July 2022 | Updated: 18:31, July 5, 2022
An unnamed Connecticut resident has been infected with COVID-19 for more than a year, with scientists even discovering that the virus has mutated multiple times in them.
Researchers at Yale University discovered the patient, who is 60 years old and suffering from a type of lymphoma, after tracing cases of a thought-to-be-missed variant back to them.
Upon further inspection, they found that the man had three different sublines of the virus in his bloodstream – signaling that he was a vector for the mutation.
This is the longest Covid infection detected by health experts and adds to growing evidence that the virus mutates in immunocompromised individuals before moving on to spread to others.
An unnamed man in his 60s, also suffering from lymphoma, had an active Covid infection for more than 470 days. They also have three different lineages of the virus circulating in their blood (file photo)
The case study is currently available in preprint on MedRxiv and is undergoing peer review prior to publication.
Surveillance of Covid variants in Connecticut, where Yale is based, found a B.1.517 strain circulating in the area that had not been seen worldwide since some time last year.
All infections were traced to a single patient living in an undisclosed part of the state.
Further verification found that they were suffering from “chronic Covid” and had been positive for the virus for at least 471 days. At the time of publication on Saturday, the patient still tested positive for the virus.
They also found that the virus was rapidly mutating in their bodies at a rate unusual for a typical infection.
It mutates twice as fast, and as a result, three completely separate, different genotypes of the virus are formed.
“This chronic infection led to accelerated evolution and divergence of SARS-CoV-2, a mechanism that potentially contributed to the emergence of genetically distinct SARS-CoV-2 variants, including Omicron, Delta, and Alpha,” the researchers wrote.
The case is one of the first – and longest – detected infections of “chronic Covid”.
Although “long Covid” is a phenomenon that experts have long known about, this condition occurs when a person still feels symptoms of the virus even after their infection has passed.
However, this infection is different because the unnamed person has an active case of Covid and continues to test positive for the virus for long periods of time.
It also adds to a growing body of literature signaling that the virus takes advantage of immunocompromised people in particular to mutate.
Last year, doctors in the UK found that a man who also suffered from lymphoma had the virus rapidly mutate while it was in his body. He would later succumb to his illness.
This discovery opened up the theory that the virus is able to create “escape mutations” that allow it to evade antibodies and remain in the genetic code.
Since then, there have been other scattered reports of people with severe co-morbidities, such as cancer, experiencing rapid mutations of the virus.
However, it is impossible to know how many people carry the rapidly mutating virus, and there is little experts can do to stop Covid from mutating frequently once it finds a suitable host.
The rapid mutation of the virus is a danger, as each time a drastic new version of Covid emerges, it catches the world off guard and leaves officials scrambling to deal with a new threat.
When the Delta variant that formed in India broke out around the world in the spring and summer of 2021, it caused one of the deadliest waves of the virus to date.
Late last year, the Omicron variant tore through the ground, causing nearly every country it touched to experience record levels of cases while negating much of the immunity protection Americans had.
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