90-year-old Belgian woman infected with Alpha and Beta variants together, dies

A 90-year-old woman who died of coronavirus infection in the European country of Belgium has been found infected with both alpha and beta variants. The woman died in March, and now genome sequencing has found both alpha and beta variants in her sample. How the woman got infected with both variants is not yet known. Both these variants are in circulation in Belgium.

According to the international news agency AFP, a 90-year-old woman was admitted to the OLV hospital in the city of Aalst after being found infected with the corona on March 3. She was not vaccinated and was treated at home. Initially, her oxygen level was fine, but later her condition started deteriorating, and she died after five days.

It is now learned that the woman was infected with both alpha and beta variants. Anne Vankeerberghen, the molecular biologist at OLV Hospital, said: “Both these variants were circulating in Belgium at the time, so it is likely that the lady was co-infected with different viruses from two different people,” She said that it is not certain that her health deteriorated so quickly due to being infected with the two variants.

Anne said no published cases of infection with the two variants had been reported so far, and the phenomenon is probably underestimated. “The reason for this is the limited testing of variants of concern. The use of fast PCR testing should be increased to capture the variants,” She said. In January, two people in Brazil were found infected with two different variants, although these results were not published.

What are Alpha and Beta variants?

Alpha and beta are the two more contagious variants of the coronavirus. Alpha was first found in the United Kingdom (UK), and Beta was first found in South Africa. The alpha variant is thought to be about 50 per cent more infectious than the original variant of Covid-19 and is one of the most infectious variants of the corona. Whereas the beta variant is successful in dodging vaccines, and vaccines against it are not very effective.