Longest Recorded COVID Case: Patient Dies After Virus Mutates 50 Times In 613 Days

London: It’s been close to two years since COVID-19 stopped being a menace to humanity.

However, it brings back painful memories whenever news of rare cases surface.

Just like the recent revelation that a man suffered from coronavirus infection for a staggering 613 days before passing away in September 2023.

According to a study by researchers of Amsterdam University Medical Center, an unnamed Dutch man suffered the longest recorded COVID-19 infection.

The 72-year-old man was already suffering from a blood disease when he got infected with COVID-19 in February 2022.

That led to a compromised immune system.

The researchers found that the virus mutated over 50 times in the patient’s body, and finally transformed into an ultra-mutated variant, reported TIME.

The Dutch patient’s 20-month-long COVID surpassed the 505-day infection of a British man who also finally succumbed to his illness.

Despite receiving multiple COVID-19 vaccine doses, the Dutch man contracted the Omicron variant which the patient’s immune system failed to keep up.

“This case underscores the risk of persistent SARS-CoV-2 infections in immunocompromised individuals. We emphasise the importance of continuing genomic surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 evolution in immunocompromised individuals with persistent infections,” the authors of the study said.

The case study of the 72-year-old man will be presented at the ESCMID Global Congress in Barcelona next week.