An Immunocompetent Patient with High Neutralizing Antibody Titers Who Shed COVID-19 Virus for 169 days — China, 2020
Li Li, Siqi Li, Yang Pan, Ling Qin, Siyuan Yang, Dawei Tan, Yaling Hu, Maria Deloria Knoll, Xiaoli Wang, Linghang Wang, Quanyi Wang
Abstract
Few reports are available about prolonged shedding of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) virus, also known as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), by immunocompetent patients. We report a case of an infected, immunocompetent person with 169 days of COVID-19 virus shedding during which time he had two brief periods when he tested negative for COVID-19 followed by again testing positive. We describe relevant clinical, immunological, and genomic features. We found that continuous and prolonged viral replication and infectivity existed in an immunocompetent COVID-19 patient, despite having high neutralizing antibody titers.