Although there is limited evidence to indicate that HIV-infected people are more susceptible to contracting COVID-19 and developing grave medical consequences, researchers are of the opinion that if more such cases come to light, patients with advanced HIV could “become a factory of variants for the whole world.”
A study by experts in South Africa has found potentially dangerous coronavirus mutations in a 36-year-old South African woman with advanced HIV. The woman carried the COVID-19 virus for 216 days and during this period, the virus gathered 32 mutations.
The study, published on Thursday, in the medical journal medRxiv is yet to be peer-reviewed. The report said that the woman was diagnosed with HIV back in 2006 and her immune system has weakened consistently over time. After she contracted COVID-19 in September 2020, the virus accumulated 13 mutations to the spike protein and 19 other genetic shifts that could change the behavior of the virus.
Some of these alterations have been seen in variants of concern like E484K mutation, which is part of the Alpha variant B.1.1.7 (first detected in the UK), and N510Y mutation, which is part of the Beta variant B.1.351 (First found in South Africa).
Researchers have also said it was not clear if the woman passed on these mutations to others. However, researchers said it’s probably not a coincidence that most of the new variants have emerged from areas like KwaZulu Natal in South Africa, where more than 1 in 4 adults is HIV positive.
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“While most people effectively clear Sars-CoV-2, there are several reports of prolonged infection in immunosuppressed individuals. We present a case of prolonged infection of greater than 6 months with the shedding of high titter SARS-CoV-2 in an individual with advanced HIV and antiretroviral treatment failure. Through whole genome sequencing at multiple time points, we demonstrate the early emergence of the E484K substitution associated with escape from neutralizing antibodies, followed by other escape mutations and the N501Y substitution found in most variants of concern,” an excerpt of the study said.
Although there is limited evidence to indicate that HIV-infected people are more susceptible to contracting COVID-19 and developing grave medical consequences, researchers are of the opinion that if more such cases come to light, patients with advanced HIV could “become a factory of variants for the whole world.”
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