The person with the longest consecutive COVID-19 infection was a 72-year-old man in Amsterdam who was documented to have the infection for 612 days, Scientific American reported May 1.
The man was first admitted to Amsterdam University Medical Center in February 2022. He already had myelodysplastic and myeloproliferative overlap syndrome and lymphoma. He came to the hospital with an omicron strain of SARS-CoV-2 and presented with COVID-19 respiratory symptoms.
Previously, he had received three shots of Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine, but his body contained no detectable antibodies. Researchers said it was likely the immune system-suppressing medications he took to treat his lymphoma and blood conditions stopped his body from creating antibodies.
Physicians prescribed multiple COVID-19 treatments, but the patient showed no measurable clinical response to any of them, and he could not safely stop taking his other medications. After a month, the man's initial COVID-19 symptoms subsided on their own and he was discharged to a rehabilitation facility, and then home to isolate. However, he continued to test positive for COVID-19 throughout the following 20 months. The man eventually died of complications due to his illness but did not die of COVID-19 specifically, the report said.
Researchers analyzed 27 nasal swab samples taken between February 2022 and September 2023. They found more than 50 new mutations to the original omicron strain. Although mutations in immunocompromised patients is not abnormal, these mutations were unusual in how their features differed from those observed in other people with COVID-19, researchers said. His preexisting condition and length of infection likely allowed the extensive evolution.
The report of the man's illness was presented at the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases Global Congress in Barcelona, Spain. It has not been published in a scientific journal.