Persistent Covid infection -- which is different to long Covid or repeated bouts of the disease -- occurs in a small number of patients with already weakened immune systems.
In a new study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, a team of researchers at Guy's & St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust and King's College London describe how a 59-year-old man finally overcame his infection after more than 13 months. The test, which can deliver results in as little as 24 hours, showed the man had an early B.1 variant which was dominant in late 2020 but has since been replaced by newer strains.
But it successfully cured the man because he was battling a variant from an earlier phase of the pandemic."The very new variants that are increasing in prevalence now are resistant to all the antibodies available in the UK, the EU and now even the US," Snell said.