- The world is racing to develop cures of coronavirus with unbelievable speed, but not all researchers are looking to create new drugs.
- Some consider other ways to treat COVID-19, and they think that vaccines and asymptomatic patients can help solve a crucial myanavirus mystery that leads to lower mortality.
- Researchers believe that some of the vaccines administered to prevent other infectious diseases, including measles and tuberculosis vaccines, may have trained the immune system to respond unexpectedly to the new coronavirus.
The world has reported just over 20 million cumulative cases of coronavirus, and nearly 750,000 people have died since Tuesday morning from COVID-19 complications. Unfortunately, many thousands more will die in the coming weeks and months. The pandemic is barely over and some countries are still experiencing their outbreaks. The United States, for example, has done the worst job in the world to contain the spread of COVID-19 and it continues to register tens of thousands of new cases every day.
It may not seem like it, but the world is actually in much better shape than it was a few months ago when it comes to dealing with the disease. Some countries have even managed to stop the first COVID-19 wave. Doctors who treat serious patients who need oxygen therapy and ventilation save more lives than before. Several drug therapies have been devised to better manage the disease, and very few experimental vaccines have reached the final stage of testing. Likewise, other drugs have been made explicit to induce an immune response, in promising clinical trials.
The scientific community shows no signs of stopping, with each passing week bringing us new COVID-19 discoveries that may be helpful in developing new protocols to treat the pandemic. Some researchers are also studying an intriguing premise that says existing vaccines and asymptomatic coronavirus cases may hold the key to figuring out how to defeat this pandemic.
It is not the new candidates for coronavirus vaccines that are currently in the works we are talking about. There are more than 150 of those in the works, of which about a dozen have achieved clinical trials. A handful have even reached Phase 3 of testing in several countries, and at least a few have to be approved by late fall or winter.
These vaccines may prevent COVID-19 infections in the future, but some researchers are more interested in different vaccines when it comes to asymptomatic COVID-19 cases. These are childhood vaccines that an individual has received for other infectious diseases that could have had an unexpected side effect. The immune system of these individuals may be in a better shape to treat with a new pathogen such as SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. This is an essential mystery of coronavirus, and explaining that it can open all sorts of new doors.
“When we looked at the setting of COVID disease, we found that people who had previous vaccinations with a variety of vaccines – for pneumococcus, influenza, hepatitis, and others – appeared to have a lower risk of COVID. disease, “said Dr. Andrew Badley of The Mayo Clinic told CNN’s Anderson Cooper.
Badley compared the immune system to a muscle. “The more you exercise that muscle, the stronger it will be when you need it.”
Investigators are still investigating the case. In June, a team of U.S. researchers suggested giving some people a booster dose of the MMR vaccine (measles, mumps, and rubella) to see if it could prevent more severe cases of COVID-19. Others looked at the tuberculosis vaccine Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) and concluded that countries with people who received the drug had fewer deaths from COVID-19.
Asymptomatic spreaders may not experience any symptoms, but they are not immune. Their bodies show signs of fighting the virus in tests such as CT scans and blood tests. Researchers also thought that asymptomatic patients had as much virus in their systems as symptomatic cases. Asymptomatic people are indeed infected and can spread the virus, but they remove the infection more efficiently than others, and they do so without noticeable discomfort.
If these findings can be confirmed, they could help shape public health policies for the COVID-19 pandemic and some countries help manage the disease until the first COVID-19 vaccines and therapies are approved. There is also no guarantee that any of the current COVID-19 vaccine candidates will work as new meds, in which case other therapies should be devised to reduce complications and lower mortality rates.
Separately, a few studies in recent months have shown that even a common cold – caused by one of the milder human coronaviruses that predate SARS-CoV-2 – could generate immune responses that are useful in ‘ the fight against COVID-19. Research has suggested that the T cells and white blood cells that result from common colds can recognize and fight the new coronavirus.
Chris Smith began writing about gadgets as a hobby, and before he knew it, he was sharing his views on tech things with readers all over the world. Every time he does not write about gadgets, he manages to get away with it, even though he tries desperately. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
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