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Why do some people hardly notice they are infected, while others end up in the intensive care unit or die?
Researchers believe they have partly come close to the mystery.
Many seriously ill people may have carried a death trap that has been dormant in their bodies for their entire lives.
The spread of the coronavirus is increasing again, both in Sweden and in much of the world. The worldwide death toll is close to a million people, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Experts warn that we are only at the beginning of the pandemic and that we will be forced to live with the virus for a long time. As researchers try to find a vaccine, many research teams are working to try to understand why the disease affects people so widely and differently. Many deaths can be explained by old age, underlying diseases, or lifestyle diseases.
But many apparently healthy people are harshly and inexplicably affected by the disease. Now a partial answer to that puzzle may have been answered.
Photo: Natacha Pisarenko / TT
The person is cared for in the intensive care unit of a seven-family home in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Cell error
It is the Guardian magazine that describes the new studies recently published in the scientific journal Science. An international research team has found two errors in seriously ill patients with covid-19. Insects prevent them from producing the type 1 interferon signaling molecule. This protein produced in cells is the body’s first defense against the virus.
According to the researchers, the defect may be genetic and have been hidden in the body all its life and only became dangerous when the new coronavirus struck. Or it could be an immune error that the patient has suffered during his life.
Mutation found
The researchers studied 659 severely ill corona patients from around the world and 534 people with mild or asymptomatic disease. They found that the first group to a greater extent had a mutation that prevented cells from producing interferon, writes The Guardian.
In a second study involving nearly 1,000 seriously ill people, more than 10 percent of antibodies were found against their own interferon, preventing them from resolving the disease. In the asymptomatic control group, no such autoantibodies were found.
Photo: Matthias Schrader / TT
Coronavirus test.
Together, these two insects account for about 15 percent of life-threatening coronary heart disease, according to immunologist Jean-Laurent Casanova of Rockefeller University in New York, who is one of the experts at the Covid Human Genetic Effort research group.
However, he suspects that genetics will eventually explain most of these cases, as so far the group has only been able to search for some of the genes in question. Other genes in the body may also be behind a person’s ability to fight the virus.
Type 1 interferon stops virus replication and is the front line of the immune system. If this really works effectively, the person can overcome the infection with little or no feeling sick. Even if it doesn’t work at all, the body buys time to develop other immune measures against the specific virus.
Without interferon, the body has only the secondary defense to lean on, which can take a long time to develop. And when activated, the coronavirus may have already wreaked havoc on the body.
Photo: Matthias Schrader / TT
A person gets corona tested at a test station in Bergen, Germany.
May help treatment
Stephen Chapman of the Wellcome Center for Human Genetics in Oxford, who was not involved in the study, tells The Guardian about the discovery of the antibodies that stop interferon:
– If this is true, it is an amazing result.
He says the study makes an important contribution to understanding why the disease affects people so differently.
It is hoped that the discovery will facilitate treatment and that clinicians will be able to test critically ill patients for these dangerous antibodies to interferon and, in that case, be able to remove them from the blood through plasma exchange, and thus keep them away from intensive care.
Ninety-five percent of seriously ill patients who had these autoantibodies were men over the age of 50, which may help explain why that group is so overrepresented among people who need intensive care.
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