Highly Divergent SARS-CoV-2 Alpha Variant in Chronically Infected Immunocompromised Person

Abstract

We detected a highly divergent SARS-CoV-2 Alpha variant in an immunocompromised person several months after the latest detection of the Alpha variant in the Netherlands. The patient was infected for 42 weeks despite several treatment regimens and disappearance of most clinical symptoms. We identified several potential immune escape mutations in the spike protein.

Keywords

• COVID-19
• Alpha variant
• virus evolution
• immunocompromised
• variants
• coronavirus disease