Researchers in Brazil have reported cases of patients infected with two variant strains of the coronavirus at once, amid efforts to track the spread of emerging variants across the country.
The findings were published before the peer review this week on the medRxiv prepress server.
The infections were found in two patients in their 30s, who recovered without requiring hospitalization. One developed a cough and the other experienced a headache, cough and sore throat.
“We were the first to identify two independent coinfection events caused by the occurrence of B.1.1.28 (E484K) with the lines B.1.1.248 or B.1.91”, wrote the study authors.
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Variant P.1 from Brazil is a branch of the B.1.1.28 strain, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), with the first American case of variant P.1 identified in Minnesota earlier this week .
The team of researchers warned that coinfections could give rise to a faster appearance of strains.
“These coinfections can generate combinations and generate new variants even faster than what has been happening,” the study’s lead researcher, Fernando Spilki, a virologist at Feevale University in Rio Grande do Sul, told Reuters.
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Spilki said that co-infections present an additional evolutionary pathway for the new virus. He added that the cases show a growing pandemic in Brazil, because co-infections can only arise with a high degree of transmission.
Of note, the E484K mutation in the virus’s spike protein has previously been shown to escape the neutralizing power of antibodies in the treatment of convalescent plasma, although these findings were preliminary.
“However, the limited resources and the small number of sequenced samples in Brazil challenge the continuous monitoring of viral evolution and the appearance of new mutations in the country,” wrote the study authors.