After six months of the COVID-19 pandemic, a body of scientific work has emerged that shows that our immune system is capable of remembering COVID-19 and producing lasting immunity.
This immunology work also supports the theory of cross-protection, allowing the body to achieve a timely and appropriate defense on the simple inference that Sars-CoV-2 is much like other coronaviruses.
In the course of the pandemic, medical fears are only shaped by what the future holds in terms of second waves and mutations in the cold of winter, as well as by what happened at any given moment in the world.
Studies, both peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed, show positive changes in the human innate immune response to COVID-19 suggesting that the days of diseases of unconfirmed infection are numbered.
For example, in one peer reviewed study of Nature, Immunologists in Singapore studied the cellular memory of T cells, an important immune cell that weapons other immune responses in addition to detecting and eliminating pathogens on their own.
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The researchers found that:
- People with or recovering COVID-19 displayed T cell activation of memory immediately after the proteins of the virus.
- People with a history of infection – up to 17 years ago – of SARS-CoV-1, who died in China in 2002, had long-lasting T-cell responses showing ‘robust cross-reactivity’ SARS-CoV-N protein 2. “
- And, perhaps most interestingly, SARS-CoV-2-specific memory T cell activation was found “In persons with no history of SARS, COVID-19 or contact with persons who had SARS and / or COVID-19. ”
The last point is certainly enough to give us hope. And yet, more positive research is emerging.
Antibody activation
Another study, this not yet peer-reviewed, found that the response of antibodies – one of the primary classes of immune cells used to defend against pathogens – remained active until 115 days after the onset of symptoms in COVID-19 patients.
While antibody and T cell responses in the blood have been extensively studied, this work, published in the preprint publication, has been one of the first to look for responses in mucus cells. The scientists note that this is an important area of research because it infects the virus in the upper respiratory tract.
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“The immune response is doing exactly what we would expect,” Gommerman, an immunologist at the University of Toronto who worked on the study, told CNN. “At least about four months, which most of us can measure in the pandemic at this point.”
Work on yet another type of immune cell, the ‘helper’ T cell as opposed to the ‘killer’ T cell, was completed earlier this year when several studies were published in Nature en Science found that helpers were also able to identify COVID-19 more than half the time and sound the alarm, and that these helpers were present in patients who had never been exposed to COVID-19.
The evidence of re-infection does not exist at this point, suggesting that the human collective immune system is working well to fight it.
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“That’s all good news,” Gommerman said. “This means that people infected with this new coronavirus must have the capacity to attach what is called an immune response to memory to protect themselves from infection.”
Should more positive stories and updates come out of the COVID-19 challenge? For more lifting coverage, click here.
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