London: A 72-year-old British man has been tested positive for coronaviruses for 10 months in what is considered as the longest case of continuous infection, announced on Thursday the researchers.
Dave Smith, a Bristol retirement instructor in western England, said he has been tested positive 43 times, was hospitalized seven times and had made plans for his funeral.
“I had resigned myself, I had called the family in, made my peace with everyone,” said goodbye, “he told BBC television.
His wife, Linda, who was quarantined with him at home, said, “There were many times we did not think he was going to pass. It was a one year hell.
Ed Moran, a consultant in infectious diseases at the University of Bristol and North Bristol NHS Trust, said Smith “had an active virus in his body” everywhere.
“We have been able to prove that by sending a sample of its virus to academic partners who have managed to develop it, proving that it was not only left products that triggered a PCR test, but actually an active virus, viable . “
Smith recovered after treatment with a synthetic antibody cocktail developed by the American company Biotech Firm Regenton.
This has been authorized on grounds of compassion in its case, but the treatment plan is not clinically approved for use in Great Britain.
The results of a clinical trial published this month have shown that the treatment has been reduced death in severe coocutant patients unable to mount a strong immune response.
“It’s as if you received your life,” said Smith at the BBC.
He and his wife feared a bottle of champagne when he finally tested negative, 45 days after receiving the Regeneron medicine and about 305 days after his first infection.
Smith’s treatment was not part of an official medical trial, but his case is now studied by Virologist Andrew Davidson at the University of Bristol.
A document on his case will be presented to the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases in July, claiming that his reflection was “the longest infection recorded in the literature”.
“Where is the virus hiding in the body? How can it stay in persistently infecting people? We do not know that” says Davidson.
Smith had a history of pulmonary disease and recently recovered from leukemia when he caught the virus in March 2020.
He told Guardian daily that since his recovery, he is always out of breath but traveled to Great Britain and teaches his granddaughter to drive.
“I went to the bottom and everything is brilliant now,” he said.