New Delhi, Aug. 11 -- A new study suggests that severe COVID-19 infection could reactivate dormant viruses that remain in the body following earlier illnesses.

The study, published in the journal Nature, involved 1,154 patients hospitalised with COVID-19 and was conducted by researchers at Boston Children's Hospital along with collaborators from more than 20 biomedical research centres across the US and Ontario, Canada. Over the course of a year, the team examined more than 200,000 biological samples collected from the patients, ABC News reported Monday (local time).

The researchers found that 11 types of dormant viruses were reactivated within the first 40 days after patients were admitted to hospital with SARS-CoV-2, the virus respons...