It is possible to catch two Covid variants at the same time, experts are warning after seeing a double infection in a 90-year-old woman who became sick with the Alpha and Beta types first identified in the UK and South Africa.
The woman, who died in March 2021 in Belgium, had not been vaccinated.
Her doctors suspect she contracted the infections from two different people.
They believe it is the first documented case of its kind and, although rare, similar dual infections are happening.
Her case is being discussed at this year’s European Congress on Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases.
In January 2021, scientists in Brazil reported that two people had been simultaneously infected with two types of coronavirus, one of them a variant of concern called Gamma.
Researchers from Portugal, meanwhile, recently treated a 17-year-old who appeared to have caught a second type of Covid while still recovering from a different, pre-existing Covid infection.The 90-year-old, who was infected with the two “variants of concern” – the most worrying new versions of coronavirus that experts are tracking – had been admitted to hospital after experiencing some falls, but later developed worsening respiratory symptoms. (BBC)