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Covid: HIV-positive woman carries coronavirus for 216 days, develops 32 mutations

Durban - The unnamed 36-year-old woman was the subject of a case report.

Published: Sun 6 Jun 2021, 1:22 PM

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A South African woman with advanced HIV carried the coronavirus for 216 days, during which it accumulated 32 mutations, according to a new study.

According to Business Insider, the unnamed 36-year-old woman’s unique Covid situation was the subject of a case study by Tulio de Oliveira, a geneticist at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban.

The case report, which is yet to be peer-reviewed, said that the coronaviruses gathered 13 mutations to the spike protein, which is known to help the virus escape the immune response and 19 other mutations that could change the way the virus behaves.

Some of the mutations seen in the woman have been previously observed in other known Covid variants, such as:

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•The E484K mutation, which is part of the Alpha variant (B.1.1.7, which was first seen in the UK).

•The N510Y mutation, which is part of the Beta variant (B.1.351, which was first seen in South Africa).

It is not yet clear whether the woman’s mutations were passed on to others.



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