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Rare coronavirus patient’s mild symptoms but long illness may point to ‘chronic’ mutation: researchers
Published: 7:45am, 1 Apr, 2020
Chinese researchers have raised the possibility that a new subtype pathogen of
Covid-19 that has low toxicity but with prolonged ability to infect others might have occurred after observing a rare case in which the disease appeared to be “chronic”, pointing to the possibility of a mutation.
The researchers warn there may be more “chronic infected patients” who carry the infection into their surroundings and trigger an outbreak.
A middle-aged man whose symptoms were not severe appears to have formed a “dynamic balance” with the coronavirus after an extremely prolonged illness lasting 49 days, Chinese military researchers reported in a preprint article on Medrxiv.org last week.
The patient had been observed to have both a high Covid-19 viral load and, at the same time, his immune cell indicators had remained stable.
“The virus and the host may even form a symbiotic relationship,” said the researchers from the Army Medical University in Chongqing, No 967 Hospital of PLA, Dalian, and General Hospital of the PLA Central Theatre Command in Wuhan...
As the signs showed that his body could not eliminate the coronavirus with regular therapy and that he might still have been infectious, the patient was treated with a plasma transfusion from recovered Covid-19 patients.
The man’s swabs turned negative two days later.
It was, to date, the longest known duration of “viral shedding” for a patient who survived Covid-19. Previous clinical observation showed the median time of surviving patients turning negative was 20 days, with the longest case at 37 days. Usually, the longer the duration is, the more severe the case.
This patient, however, had intermittent low fever and did not have a cough, chill, shortness of breath or .....
https://www.scmp.com/print/news/chin...ness-may-point
- Potential ‘chronic patients’ may have prolonged ability to infect their surroundings, Chinese researchers warn
- ‘The virus and the host may even form a symbiotic relationship,’ they say
Published: 7:45am, 1 Apr, 2020
Chinese researchers have raised the possibility that a new subtype pathogen of
Covid-19 that has low toxicity but with prolonged ability to infect others might have occurred after observing a rare case in which the disease appeared to be “chronic”, pointing to the possibility of a mutation.
The researchers warn there may be more “chronic infected patients” who carry the infection into their surroundings and trigger an outbreak.
A middle-aged man whose symptoms were not severe appears to have formed a “dynamic balance” with the coronavirus after an extremely prolonged illness lasting 49 days, Chinese military researchers reported in a preprint article on Medrxiv.org last week.
The patient had been observed to have both a high Covid-19 viral load and, at the same time, his immune cell indicators had remained stable.
“The virus and the host may even form a symbiotic relationship,” said the researchers from the Army Medical University in Chongqing, No 967 Hospital of PLA, Dalian, and General Hospital of the PLA Central Theatre Command in Wuhan...
As the signs showed that his body could not eliminate the coronavirus with regular therapy and that he might still have been infectious, the patient was treated with a plasma transfusion from recovered Covid-19 patients.
The man’s swabs turned negative two days later.
It was, to date, the longest known duration of “viral shedding” for a patient who survived Covid-19. Previous clinical observation showed the median time of surviving patients turning negative was 20 days, with the longest case at 37 days. Usually, the longer the duration is, the more severe the case.
This patient, however, had intermittent low fever and did not have a cough, chill, shortness of breath or .....
https://www.scmp.com/print/news/chin...ness-may-point