UK researchers cure man who had COVID-19 for 411 days

Because he had this early variant, the researchers gave him a combination of the casirivimab and imdevimab monoclonal antibodies from Regeneron.

Like most other antibody treatments, the treatment is no longer widely used because it is ineffective against newer variants such as Omicron.

But it successfully cured the man because he was battling a variant from an earlier phase of the pandemic.

Resistant to treatment

“The very new variants that are increasing in prevalence now are resistant to all the antibodies available in the UK, the EU and now even the US,” Dr Snell said.

The researchers used several such treatments to try to save a seriously ill 60-year-old man in August, who had been infected for four months.

However none worked.

“We really thought he was going to die,” Dr Snell said.

So the team crushed up two antiviral treatments not previously used together – Paxlovid and Remdesivir – and administered them to the unconscious patient via a nasal tube, according to a non-peer-reviewed pre-print study on the website ResearchSquare.

“Miraculously, he cleared and perhaps this is now the avenue for how we treat these very difficult persistent infections,” Dr Snell said, emphasising that this treatment may not translate for normal COVID-19 cases.

At the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) conference in April, the team announced the longest-known persistent infection in a man who tested positive for 505 days before his death.

That “very sad case” came earlier in the pandemic, Dr Snell said, adding that he was grateful there were now so many more treatment options available.