Belgian officials announced Sunday that, in a first-of-its-kind case, an unvaccinated woman, who died from COVID-19 several months ago, contracted two variants of the virus simultaneously.
The 90-year-old Belgian woman, who died in March, was infected with two strands commonly known as the British and South African variants.
Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, Professor of Medicine and Associate Dean for Regional Campuses at UCSF, told KCBS Radio on Tuesday that even though this is the first reported case, this situation probably has happened before.
"I think that this case is a wakeup call that it can occur," he said. "Because we don’t do genomic sequencing on all isolates, it probably is very underrepresented. It is probably much more common than we think it is."
How does this previously unreported situation occur? Belgian doctors weren’t sure how this specific case happened, but Dr. Chin-Hong explained generally how someone could be infected twice at the same time.
"If you are unlucky enough to be infected by two different individuals with two different variants, you could imagine both setting up shop and having a battle inside the body of the host," Dr. Chin-Hong explained. "In the early period of infection before one virus proliferates fully, there's definitely a situation where two can set up shop."
He added that these circumstances are known to occur in other infectious diseases. For example, Dr. Chin-Hong cited multiple reports of people being infected with two versions of HIV – both HIV 1, the predominant version and HIV 2, which has mainly been found in Africa.
Like most aspects of COVID-19, medical experts are still learning about the effects multiple infections at once can have and don't have enough information to definitively conclude what dangers it presents. However, Dr. Chin-Hong said the worry among the medical community is that people who contract two variants simultaneously may become sicker.
"Certainly you could be more resistant to vaccines or therapies," he said. "The (two variants) could even recombine in the new host to create different viruses that combines the properties of both," which would create a mutation.
Despite the relative mystery behind this anomaly, people can ensure they’re protected from the virus, in any of its potential forms, by getting vaccinated.
"Most of the cases hopefully involve variants where we already know that the vaccine works against,” Dr. Chin Hong explained. “Vaccinations – that’s the only way to stop circulating variants in the community and to prevent the creation of new infections and new variants. It was very telling that the Belgian woman was unvaccinated."
He added that over 99% of COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths currently occuring in the U.S. are in unvaccinated individuals.
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