New coronavirus strain found: Chinese researchers ‘finds new mutated version of coronavirus that lasts for 49 days’ in infected patient

Chinese Researchers have found a middle-aged man who had mild symptoms but a prolonged version of the potentially deadly illness, according to a report from South China Morning Post. Chinese military researchers said the rare coronavirus patient has mild symptoms but long illness may point to ‘chronic’ mutation.

They also raised the possibility that a new subtype pathogen of Covid-19 that has low toxicity but with prolonged ability to infect others might have occurred after observing a rare case in which the disease appeared to be “chronic”, pointing to the possibility of a mutation.

The researchers warn there may be more “chronic infected patients” who carry the infection into their surroundings and trigger an outbreak. A middle-aged man whose symptoms were not severe appears to have formed a “dynamic balance” with the coronavirus after an extremely prolonged illness lasting 49 days, Chinese military researchers reported in a preprint article on Medrxiv.org last week.

The patient had been observed to have both a high Covid-19 viral load and, at the same time, his immune cell indicators had remained stable.  “The virus and the host may even form a symbiotic relationship,” said the researchers from the Army Medical University in Chongqing, No 967 Hospital of PLA, Dalian, and General Hospital of the PLA Central Theatre Command in Wuhan.