Two prolonged viremic SARS-CoV-2 infections with conserved viral genome for two months
Laith J. Abu‐Raddad, Hiam Chemaitelly, Joel A. Malek, Ayeda A. Ahmed, Yasmin A. Mohamoud, Shameem Younuskunju, Zaina Al Kanaani, Abdullatif Al Khal, Einas Al‐Kuwari, Adeel A. Butt, Peter Coyle, Andrew Jeremijenko, Anvar Hassan Kaleeckal, Ali Nizar Latif, Riyazuddin Mohammad Shaik, Hanan F. Abdul Rahim, Hadi M. Yassine, Mohamed Ghaith Al‐Kuwari, Hamad Eid Al Romaihi, Mohamed H. Al‐Thani, Roberto Bertollini
Abstract
We document two cases of viremic and prolonged active infection with the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) where the viral genome was conserved for two months, but infection was with little or no symptoms. The first infection persisted for 80 days and the second for 62 days. Clearance of infection occurred 40 and 41 days, respectively, after development of detectable antibodies. Both cases were identified incidentally in an investigation of reinfection in a cohort of 133,266 laboratory-confirmed infected persons.