Ian Lester contracted Corona and for seven months was positive for the virus as his immune system was unable to overcome the virus. For the first time in the world, he was given a Pfizer vaccine in order to treat and not to prevent infection, and only after another dose was a negative answer received.
More than seven months from the day he contracted Corona, Ian Lester, a 37-year-old British optician, has remained positive for the virus. Lester eventually received two Pfizer vaccines, and they were the ones that eradicated the virus and allowed him to get out of the long isolation he was in and get back to normal.
This unusual story by Ian Lester was documented in the scientific journal Journal of Clinical Immunology, and this is the first case in which a vaccine against the corona virus has been given to treat the virus and not to prevent infection as it is usually done.
Lester suffers from a rare inherited disorder called Viscot-Aldrich syndrome (WAS), and among its other effects, the disorder weakens the immune system making it difficult for the body to cope and overcome diseases and infections once it has contracted them.
With the outbreak of the plague, Ian was careful not to get infected, but finally in December 2020 he contracted the virus. At first he suffered from only mild symptoms and after a month the sense of smell also returned completely, but Lester continued to get positive answers every time he was tested. “It slowly became my prison cell,” Lester says of the long isolation imposed on him “especially when summer came and restrictions were lifted for everyone else, family and friends could be seen starting to return to real life, and I still got those positive results.”
Three months after he became infected, Ian began to experience symptoms again, including headaches and fatigue, insomnia, a busy chest, difficulty concentrating and even an accumulation of sticky mucus on his lungs. Although his condition did not require hospitalization, Ian says he feared his condition would continue and even worsen, “I will never be able to get rid of it,” he said.
Scientists and doctors at Cardiff University and the Center for Immune Failure at the University of Wales Hospital have been monitoring the battle between Lester’s body and the virus, and have found that the symptoms he suffers from are not just symptoms of ‘long cube’ but a prolonged infection. Lester’s body has identified a limited amount of T cells that can attack the virus, and even scientists and doctors have not been able to find antibodies to attack and neutralize the virus.
By the early summer of 2021 the UK had already started vaccinating the population, but Ian who was still positive for Corona could not get the vaccine. But the medical staff decided to try something extreme, and decided to give him Pfizer’s vaccine to treat it, and not to prevent infection in the first place – as is commonly used.
The difference in Ian’s body “was like night and day,” said Dr. Ponsford of Cardiff University. 218 days after being found positive for Corona, Ian received a negative response confirming that his body had recovered and eradicated the virus. The excited Lester said “I did not believe it, now everything is back to normal.”
Professor Stephen Jules, of the Center for Immune Failure in Wales, explained that “this infection broke out, but with his (weakened) immune system it just wasn’t enough to trigger a sufficient response to clear it. The vaccine really made a huge difference in antibodies and T cells, survived and squeezed “Every last drop of what his immune system could do.”
Doctors and researchers who have been following the case say the results of Ian’s treatment show that the vaccine can also be used to help people with weak immune systems who are struggling to fight off the virus. There are currently antiviral drugs that were not available when Ian contracted Corona, but vaccines may offer a cheaper and more durable option.