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An international team of scientists has found that in the spring, people can become more susceptible to coronavirus infection due to an increase in the concentration of pollen in the air.
The risk of contracting the coronavirus infection increases in the spring, when plants begin to flower, and not just in people allergic to pollen, scientists have found. Exposure of the body to pollen reduces the response of antiviral interferon. Correspondent.net says the details.
Pollen weakens the immune response
An international team of scientists led by experts from the Technical University of Munich and the Helmholtz Center for Health and Environmental Research conducted a study that showed that the risk of coronavirus infection increases during the flowering season.
The researchers concluded that spring flowering was a factor in the rapid spread of the coronavirus in the first half of 2020 in the countries of the Northern Hemisphere.
The effect of pollen on the body is known to reduce the response of antiviral interferon, making various infections more dangerous.
Since SARS-CoV-2 is sensitive to interferons, proteins secreted by cells in response to invasion by a virus, the researchers decided to test whether pollen could affect people’s vulnerability to COVID-19.
According to their hypothesis, the more pollen from flowering plants is transported through the air in the spring, the more new cases of coronavirus infection.
From January to April 2020, researchers examined data from 130 aeropalynological monitoring stations from 31 countries and compared them with information on weather conditions and the number of COVID-19 infections in the spring months of last year, when countries Europeans experienced the first wave of the pandemic.
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The scientists also took into account quarantine restrictions and other infection control methods that were introduced to a particular country in March and April 2020.
“The more pollen, the more pronounced the effect,” he quotes DW, a member of the research team, a doctor specializing in the study of the environment, professor at the Technical University of Munich, Claudia Tridel-Hoffmann.
According to Professor Tridel-Hoffman, the body of allergy sufferers gives a weaker interferon response to the appearance of the virus. However, so far, the Robert Koch Institute has not included patients with allergies at risk.
During the flowering of the plants, the number of infections increases by four percent if the country does not have a strict quarantine, the researchers calculated.
It is observed that the increase in incidence can be 44 percent at the appropriate temperature and humidity.
Very often, the incidence rate increased sharply after a very high concentration of pollen was observed in the air for four days.
For example, such an image was observed from March 10 to March 14, 2020, when a wave of pollen from flowering trees covered Europe, along with warm weather. After that, the rate of spread of the infection began to grow exponentially.
The record was set in several cities in Germany, where in the spring of 2020 the pollen concentration reached a density of 500 particles per cubic meter of air per day, representing a 20 percent increase in the incidence of the population.
At the same time, a strict lockdown allows these indicators to be cut in half, despite the equally high indicators of pollen concentration in the atmosphere, scientists say.
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People at risk are advised to wear masks outside indoors to protect themselves from pollen.
The researchers note that flowering has become only one of the factors in the increased incidence. Social contacts are the main contributors to the pandemic.
German allergist Karl-Christian Bergman emphasizes that everyone can go for a walk in the spring, regardless of the presence of allergies.
On March 22, the World Health Organization announced an increase in the number of coronavirus cases in the world.
“We are now seeing an increase in the spread in four of the five WHO regions. The increase is for the fifth consecutive week worldwide,” said Maria Van Kerkhove, head of the technical team of the Emergency Diseases Unit of the WHO.
According to her, last week the increase was eight percent. In Europe, the figure is 12 percent due to a new strain from the UK. The number of infections in Southeast Asia also increased by 49 percent, as an outbreak of the virus was recorded in India.
“In general, we see a trend towards an increase in cases, and that worries us,” said the expert.
He also said that for six weeks in the world mortality decreased. However, last week, the numbers began to rise again, which worries the WHO.
Last week, the European Union announced the start of the third wave of the coronavirus pandemic. In this sense, European governments are expanding or tightening quarantine restrictions.
One of the main problems of European countries now is the interruption of the vaccination campaign of the population due to the shortage of medicines; For various reasons, pharmaceutical companies were unable to supply the required number of ampoules. This is detailed in the Chaos in Europe material.
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