British researchers have managed to cure a man infected with Covid for 411 days. The key, as detailed in a study published in the journal “Clinical Infectious Diseases”, has been in the analysis of the genetic code of its virus as a way to find the appropriate treatment.
Persistent Covid infection, which is other than Long-Covid or repeated episodes of the diseaseoccurs in a small number of patients with already weakened immune systems.
“These people can test positive for months or even years,” explains Luke Snell of the Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Trust.
Infections can pose a serious threat because about half of patients also have persistent symptoms such as lung inflammation.
In this study, a team of researchers from the aforementioned foundation and King’s College London describe how a 59-year-old man overcame his infection after more than 13 months.
The patient, who has a weakened immune system due to a kidney transplant, was infected in December 2020 and continued to test positive until January this year.
To find out if he had been infected numerous times or if it was a persistent infection, the researchers used rapid genetic analysis.
The patient was infected in December 2020 and continued to test positive until January 2022
The test, which can return results in as little as 24 hours, showed the man had an early B.1 variant that was dominant in late 2020 but has since been superseded by newer strains.
Because I had this variant, researchers gave him a monoclonal antibody combination of casirivimab and imdevimab from Regeneron.
Like most other antibody treatments, the treatment is not widely used anymore because it is ineffective against newer variants like Omicron.
But the therapy successfully cured the man because he was fighting a variant from an earlier phase of the pandemic.
The longest known persistent infection in a man lasted 505 days before his death.
The researchers used several such treatments to try to save a critically ill 60-year-old man in August this year who had been infected since April. However none worked.
The researchers then decided to use two antivirals that had not been used together before, Paxlovid and remdesivirand administered them to the unconscious patient through a nasal tube.
“Miraculously the virus was eliminated,” says Snell, who adds that this will probably be the way “we treat these very difficult persistent infections.”
The longest known persistent infection in a man lasted 505 days before his death.