Is it true that a coronavirus infection can be sick for a year?

For more than a year and a half of pandemia, we are used to the fact that coronavirus infection is acute disease, not turning into a state of chronic. However, recently, publications began to appear that some patients according to the results of the PCR continue to allocate the virus for many months. We decided to check if this is possible and what doctors and scientists say about this.

Publications about a Russian patient who had been coronavirus for 11 months appeared in such media Lenta.ru, "Gazeta.ru", "Vesti.ru", "Russian newspaper". The newspaper reported the similar case in the UK The Guardianas well as a tabloid The Mirror.

Covid infection, as a respiratory disease, was considered for a long time a disease that has only sharp Form. Since the first wave of pandemia, sick people who do not need hospitalization, It is prescribed Observe home self -isolation for 14 days, patients receive the same order after discharge from the hospital. In some cases, outpatient, that is, without hospitalization, observation of the patient, the smear was positive before the end of self -isolation, and the insulation regime could extend for another week. However, in none of these cases, it was about chronic coronavirus infection, accompanied by stable virus for months.

Moreover, in September 2020, in the international classification of diseases in the section of the designations of new diagnoses of unclear etiology or for use in emergency situations was Added code U09.9, denoting health disorders associated with previously transferred coronavirus infection. For this code in Russian Approved The name of the post -shoe syndrome (PKS), or just post -shock, as well as its English -speaking Name -Long-okovid (variants of the literal translation: “long”, “long”, “protracted” Covid). However, this diagnosis is made only if the virus is no longer determined in the body by PCR testing. Publications about Long-kovid now It becomes More and more, some scientists even Fearthat this syndrome will cause temporary or constant disability of some part of the ill. Moreover, in addition to the lungs, coronavirus infection can violate the work nervous system, gastrointestinal tract, urogenital, Cardiovascular systems, etc.

However, in the publications about the 11-month (from April 2020 to March 2021, then information on the results of the PCR of patients is not in the public domain) coronavirus Russians and almost 10 months (290 days) at British It emphasizes that their PCR tests during this time regularly (or most of the time) gave a positive result. They became interested in Russian case at the first St. Petersburg Medical University. Pavlova. In addition to this patient, doctors also discovered 27 other cases of long -term virus. In such patients, coronavirus infection Discovered A slightly shorter period - from several months to six months, but still too long for an acute respiratory infection. By words Infectious Institute of the University named after Pavlov and Chairman of the Council of Young Scientists of the Research Institute of influenza Oksana Stanevich, the share of such patients is about 0.7% of all cases hospitalized. Both Russian and foreign doctors initially suspected that their cured patients re -infected coronavirus after discharge from the hospital, but genetic sequencing of the samples showedthat this is the same virus. 

Scientists on the basis of observation materials for the Russian patient already Published Preprint is a preliminary version of an article not yet published in a reviewed scientific publication. It is interesting in it that the virus in a patient who did not go abroad and did not contact with those who returned from abroad, at some point mutated in an option related to what was discovered The minks in Denmark. Moreover, the speed of the mutation of the virus in the body of the patient was significantly higherthan the average total speed of coronavirus mutations. At the same time, a comforting fact was also discovered: the ability of a mutated virus to avoid antibodies increasedThis means that the vaccines from such a virus would still be protected with a fairly high efficiency.

Similar cases are described in other publications and reports, patients identified the virus 52 days, 69 days, 70 days, 74 days. However, if you carefully look at the accompanying diagnoses of these people, one regularity can be seen. All of them had cancer and oncological diseases. So, the Russian patient had a non -Kindkin lymphoma, the Briton in 2019 completed chemotherapy against leukemia, other described long -term virus -carriers also took immunosuppressive drugs after transplantation or within the framework of antitumor therapy. To date supposedThe reason for their long virus-extension activity can be reduced due to special treatment of the ability of the immune system to respond to various infectious agents.

Thus, a long (more than a month) coronavirus infection really exists, in the scientific literature there are enough such patients. The British can be considered a record holder if you take into account the strictly continuous duration of the virus, or a Russian woman, given the periods when the virus did not stand out, but then appeared in the body again. At the same time, in all described cases, researchers note that, in addition to coronavirus infection, patients had concomitant conditions, accompanied by inhibition of immunity.

Is it true

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. A very long Covid. Four versions of the origin of postcoronavirus syndrome (PKS) and its most dangerous consequences
2. Is it true that the ill-poured Covid-19 irreversibly falls the level of intelligence?