Researchers at London hospitals call for urgent new treatments for persistent infections
Researchers at King’s College London and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS foundation trust followed nine patients with persistent Covid to see how the virus evolved over the course of their infection. All of the patients had weakened immune systems due to organ transplantation, HIV, cancer or therapies for other illnesses.
“These individuals seem to have a very poor outcome when they have persistent infection,” said Dr Luke Blagdon Snell, a clinical research fellow at Guy’s. “There’s an imperative to develop better treatments to clear infections for the patient’s own benefit. It may also have the added benefit of preventing the emergence of variants, but that is not yet clear.