Experts are warning that it is possible to be infected with two different variants of coronavirus after a 90-year-old woman from Belgium was found to have both the Alpha and Beta variants of COVID-19.
The woman passed away from COVID in March in Belgium. She had not been vaccinated. She lived alone and was receiving nursing care at home before contracting the virus and being evacuated to the OLV Hospital in Aalst.
According to the BBC, her doctors believe that she contracted the dual infections from two different people.
The strange case will be discussed at the European Congress on Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases, but has not yet been formally published in a peer-reviewed journal.
"Both these variants were circulating in Belgium at the time, so it is likely that the lady was co-infected with different viruses from two different people," said OLV Hospital's molecular biologist and lead author of the study Anne Vankeerberghen.
The woman's medical history was "unremarkable," according to a press release. After being hospitalized, she tested positive for COVID-19. Her respiratory symptoms quickly worsened and she passed away five days after being evacuated to the hospital.
Her respiratory sample was tested post-mortem and was found to have both the Alpha and Beta variants of COVID-19.
"Since co-infections with variants of concern can only be detected by VOC-analysis of positive samples, we would encourage scientists to perform fast, easy and cheap VOC-analysis by PCR on a large proportion of their positive samples, rather than just whole genome sequencing on a small proportion," Vankeerberghen said. "Independent of the technique used, being alert to co-infections remains crucial."