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The woman, age 90, was admitted to a Belgium hospital to treat injuries from a fall and tested positive for COVID that day, according to a report by the European Congress on Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases.
Though she did not display symptoms when admitted and displayed good oxygen saturation, she quickly developed rapidly worsening respiratory problems and died less than a week later.
When respiratory test samples were returned, it was discovered that she tested positive for Alpha, the strain that originated in the United Kingdom known as B.1.1.7, and Beta, the variant first detected in South Africa known as B.1.351.
"Both these variants were circulating in Belgium at the time, so it is likely that the lady was co-infected with different viruses from two different people," the report said. "Unfortunately, we don't know how she became infected."
The report noted that it's difficult to say "whether the co-infection of the two variants of concern played a role in the fast deterioration of the patient.
"Up to now, there have been no other published cases. However, the global occurrence of this phenomenon is probably underestimated due to limited testing for variants of concern and the lack of a simple way to identify co-infections with whole-genome sequencing."
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