90-year-old Belgium woman dies after getting infected with 2 coronavirus variants at same time

New Delhi : A 90-year-old woman in Belgium died after being infected with two coronavirus variants at the same time. She caught both alpha and beta variant, researchers said on Sunday.

The unvaccinated woman, who lived alone and received at-home nursing care, was admitted to the OLV Hospital in the Belgian city of Aalst after a spate of falls in March and tested positive for Covid-19 the same day.

Initially her oxygen levels were good, but within five days her condition deteriorated rapidly and she passed away.

When medical staff tested for the presence of any variants of concern they found that she was carrying both the Alpha strain, which originated in Britain, and the Beta variant first detected in South Africa.

"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," said molecular biologist Anne Vankeerberghen from the OLV Hospital who led the research.

"Unfortunately, we don't know how she became infected."

In January, Brazil reported that two people have been simultaneously infected with two different strains of the coronavirus, but the study has yet to be published in a scientific journal.