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EPA
Scientists from Australia claim that they were able to find out exactly how the human immune system fights against coronavirus.
The results of their research, published on Tuesday in the journal Nature Medicine, show that the mechanism for overcoming a new viral infection is practically no different from the fight against conventional flu.
This means that the study can help in the development of a vaccine against coronavirus.
To date, more than 190 thousand cases of infection have been confirmed worldwide; coronavirus claimed the lives of 7.5 thousand people.
“This discovery is important because we first truly understood how our immune system fights the new coronavirus,” says co-author of the study, Professor Catherine Kedzirska.
Many experts praised the study at the Peter Doherty Institute of Infections and Immunity in Melbourne. “
What did scientists discover?
The recovery of most people infected with Covid-19 clearly indicates that the human immune system can effectively resist the virus.
But how exactly does this struggle happen? This was established by Australian scientists who identified four types of immune cells that are involved in this battle.
The studies involved volunteers who had not previously complained of health, in whom the disease was mild.
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PETER DOHERTY INSTITUTE
Shots of the lungs show how they clear themselves of the infection as immune cells appear.
So, a 47-year-old woman from Wuhan, who recovered after 14 days, was taken to one of the Australian hospitals.
In an interview with the BBC, Professor Kedzirska explained that the researchers “have fully studied the response of this patient’s immune system.”
Three days before the woman started recovering, specific cells were noticed in her blood. According to Kedzirskaya, at about the same time, shortly before recovery, the same cells appear in the blood of those suffering from the usual flu.
“We were very pleased with these results and the fact that we were able to detect the appearance of immune cells in infected patients on the eve of clinical improvement,” said Professor Kedzirska, adding that more than a dozen scientists conducted tests around the clock for four weeks to achieve these results.
How can this help in the fight against coronavirus?
“When you know at what point the immune cells come into action, you can determine what stage of healing the patient is in,” explains Dean of Swinburne University of Technology, Professor Bruce Thompson.
Australia’s Minister of Health Greg, in turn, emphasizes that the discovery of scientists could accelerate the development of vaccines and potential drugs to treat this infection.
And Katherine Kedzirska has already set a new task: to determine why, in the most severe cases, the immune system is less responsive to the source of the disease.
“This is the key to understanding how those who died from the virus or who are ill with a particularly severe form were different from the rest, and with this key we could understand how to save them,” says Professor Kedzirska.
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