United States: An individual with compromised immunity, grappling with a persistent COVID infection spanning a year and a half, became a fertile ground for the genesis of numerous mutations in the coronavirus, as per recent research findings.

What’s more alarming is that a number of these mutations occurred in the spike protein of COVID, suggesting the virus’s endeavor to circumvent existing vaccines, as per the accounts of researchers.

“This instance highlights the peril of enduring SARS-CoV-2 infections in immunocompromised persons, as distinct SARS-CoV-2 viral variations may emerge,” remarked the investigative team headed by Magda Vergouwe, a doctoral candidate affiliated with Amsterdam University Medical Center in The Netherlands, according to HealthDay.

The individual in question endured the lengthiest documented COVID infection, grappling with the virus for 613 days before succumbing to the hematological disorder compromising his immune system, researchers disclosed.

Patients with compromised immunity who endure persistent infections provide an opportunity for the COVID virus to adapt and mutate, elucidated the investigators.

For instance, researchers highlighted that it’s believed that the Omicron variant arose in an immunocompromised patient initially infected with a previous iteration of COVID.

In this latest study, the individual was admitted to Amsterdam University Medical Center in February 2022 with a COVID infection at the age of 72, subsequent to receiving multiple vaccinations.

He suffered from myelodysplastic and myeloproliferative overlap syndrome, a condition characterized by excessive production of white blood cells by the bone marrow, according to the US National Cancer Institute.

Following a stem cell transplant, the individual also developed lymphoma, a malignancy affecting white blood cells, researchers elaborated, as outlined by HealthDay.

A medication he was prescribed for lymphoma, rituximab, depleted all the immune cells responsible for producing antibodies against COVID, they added.

In an attempt to eradicate his COVID infection, the individual received a monoclonal antibody cocktail, which ultimately proved futile.

In reality, the genetic analysis indicated that the coronavirus began mutating to evade the antibodies he had received, a development that could potentially undermine the efficacy of the treatment in other cases, researchers indicated.

Genetic sequencing of 27 nasal samples obtained from the individual revealed over 50 mutations in the COVID virus, including variants featuring alterations in the spike protein targeted by vaccines.

“The prolonged infection has facilitated the emergence of a novel immune-evasive variant owing to extensive within-host evolution,” researchers stated.

Instances such as these pose a “potential public health menace of potentially introducing viral escape variants into the populace,” they appended, as outlined by US News.

However, they underscored that there had been no documented instances of transmission of any COVID variants from the individual to others.

The findings of the researchers will be presented at the forthcoming European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases conference in Barcelona. It should be noted that findings presented at medical conferences should be considered preliminary until they undergo peer review and publication in a scholarly journal.