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They also found that the disease still left significant changes in the immune system after ten weeks. The results could play an important role in treating patients and developing vaccines, he said Monday in a broadcast by the medical university.
From flu-like symptoms to loss of smell
The differentiation into seven groups of symptoms was carried out by a team led by immunologist Winfried F. Pickl and allergist Rudolf Valenta. First, they documented “flu-like symptoms” (with fever, chills, tiredness and cough), secondly, “cold symptoms” (with runny nose, sneezing, dry throat and nasal congestion), in third, “joint and muscle pain”, and fourth, “inflammation of the eyes and mucous membranes.” , fifth, “lung problems” (with pneumonia and shortness of breath), and sixth, the group with “gastrointestinal problems” (including diarrhea, nausea and headache) and the seventh, mild form of patients with “loss of consciousness of smell and taste “and other Symptoms”.
“In the last group, we were also able to determine that more people with a ‘young immune system’ are affected by loss of smell and taste, as measured by the number of immune cells (T lymphocytes) that have recently migrated from the thymus. This means that we were able to clearly differentiate the systemic forms (eg groups 1 and 3) from the organ specific forms (eg groups 6 and 7) of primary Covid-19 disease, ”explained Pickl.
Persistent changes in blood count.
In addition, the researchers documented in the study published in the main journal “Allergy” with 109 recovered and 98 healthy people that Covid-19 leaves detectable changes in the blood for a long time. The number of granulocytes in the immune system that are responsible for fighting bacterial pathogens is significantly lower than usual in the Covid-19 group.
“This shows that the immune system is still intensively dealing with the disease many weeks after the first infection. At the same time, regulatory cells are greatly reduced, it’s a dangerous combination that could also lead to autoimmunity, ”Pickl emphasized.
Immune cells and antibodies
In those recovered from Covid-19, elevated levels of antibody-producing immune cells were detected in the blood. The stronger, even if the course was mild, the fever of those affected, the higher the levels of antibodies against the virus. Above all, the study shows that the human immune system “doubles” to defend itself against a disease with the joint help of immune cells and antibodies, as in the defense of a modern football team, and that the cells also remember certain “movements “from the virus and react to them. can. Now it’s a matter of implementing these findings and using them for vaccine development, the researchers emphasized.
