A female doctor from Assam may be India’s first patient to be infected by two different variants of Covid-19 at the same time. The woman has reportedly been infected by both the Alpha and Delta variants of SARS-CoV-2. Confirming the report, Dr Biswajyoti Borkakoty told over the phone, “We have recently detected a case in which a lady doctor was infected by two different variants of the coronavirus at the same time. The lady doctor was vaccinated with both doses.”
Dr Biswajyoti Borkakoty is the nodal officer at the ICMR Regional Medical Research Centre (RMRC) at Lahowal in Assam’s Dibrugarh district. On a positive note, the official also added that there is ‘nothing to worry’ as the woman is ‘quite all right’. The woman was fully vaccinated as per the doctor and she will receive treatment ‘similar to any other mono-infection of the virus’. The senior officer stated that the woman had tested positive for Covid-19 after her husband. “When we tested her samples in our laboratory, we found that she was infected by both Alpha and Delta variants of SARS-CoV-2 at the same time. Her husband was infected by the Alpha variant. The samples of the doctor were collected twice to ascertain and reconfirm the double infection. It is, hence, confirmed that she was infected by both variants at the same time,” Dr Biswajyoti Borkakoty said. There have been few such instances in the UK, Brazil and Portugal but such a case has not been reported from India so far.
