Cold infections may help prevent coronavirus infections

Scottish researchers have found that the antibodies accumulated during the common cold can serve as a level of protection against the new coronavirus. Research by the University of Glasgow creates an argument that the human rhinovirus “triggers an innate immune response” that blocks the replication of the coronavirus in the past. Previous research has shown that when human rhinovirus infections come into contact with other respiratory viruses, the “type and severity” are generally affected, usually in the virus’s ability to spread. a laboratory environment. The researchers then studied the replication of the coronavirus in infected cells. The researchers found cases in which study participants were infected with both the coronavirus and the common cold, as well as separately from each other. “Our research shows that the human rhinovirus triggers an innate immune response in human respiratory epithelial cells that blocks the replication of the COVID-19 virus, SARS-CoV-2,” said Professor Pablo Murcia, from the MRC-University of Glasgow Center for Virus Research. “This means that the immune response caused by mild infections by the common cold virus could provide some level of transient protection against SARS-CoV-2, potentially blocking the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and reducing the severity. of the COVID-19 “, added Murcia. our best method of protection against COVID-19 ”.

Their findings were recently published in the Oxford Academic Journal of Infectious Diseases.

Zachary Keyser contributed to this report.