14 months, 78 positive tests and one patient

Kayasan, 56, is the patient with the longest-lasting coronavirus infection registered in Turkey. According to doctors, this condition is associated with the immune system weakened due to cancer. The disease and COVID-19 did not lower Kayasana's mood for sure. "I think it's the female version of COVID and she's obsessed with me," he joked when another test from last week was also positive.

Nine months in the hospital and five months alone in a quarantine apartment have separated him from most of the world and his loved ones, including his granddaughter, Azra, with whom he talks through the glass door separating the garden and the house.

According to a study published last year in the New England Journal of Medicine, immunosuppressed coronavirus patients are at risk of prolonged infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome. Another report, compiled by the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, shows that one in four blood cancer patients do not produce detectable antibodies even after receiving two doses of the vaccine.

Kayasana's physician Serap Simsek Yavuz, professor of infectious disease and clinical microbiology at the University of Istanbul, said it was the longest case - 441 days - that they have traced to date and is being closely monitored for the risk of the mutant variant.
Positive tests render Kayasan ineligible for vaccination. A patient who he lost his sense of taste and smell, urged authorities to at least ease the rules on his quarantine. His son, Gokhan Kayasan, said his father was always a positive person - but he didn't expect it to be that way.

Source: Reuters