A new study has revealed that the antibodies that the body develops due to the common flu, make people less likely to catch it. Covid-19.
The study researchers found that some people who did not get Covid-19, despite living with someone who did, had sky-high levels of T-cells that develop from certain common colds and act as protective immune cells.
The study was published earlier this week by the UK’s Imperial College London, in the journal Nature Communications. There they provide further evidence of the protective effects of these T cells.
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Undoubtedly, this is interesting news considering that the pandemic is in its third year and new variants, such as the Omicron, question the protection provided by some vaccines.
“Being exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 virus does not always result in infection, and we wanted to understand why,” said Rhia Kundu, lead author of the study from Imperial College London and a researcher at the National Heart and Lung Institute.
“We found that high levels of pre-existing T cells, created by the body when it becomes infected with other human coronaviruses like the common cold, can protect us,” Kundu said.
What did this study consist of?
The researchers in this study carried out an analysis of blood samples obtained from 52 people who lived with someone who had tested positive for Covid-19, of whom half were not infected.
Concluding that T cells, induced in the immune system by other types of coronavirus, play a protective role. Compared to antibodies, T cells survive longer in the body and can kill infected cells, preventing the development of serious diseases.
These cells also tend to attack a wide variety of pathogens, more so than antibodies, allowing for a greater degree of cross-protection between different viruses or strains, explained Peter English, former chairman of the British Medical Association’s Public Health Medicine Committee, through a statement published by the UK Science Media Center.
This finding might lead to a universal vaccine once morest Covid-19
The antibodies provided by the Covid-19 vaccines block the pica protein, which is the virus’s gateway to cells. But these antibodies lose effectiveness when the virus undergoes a significant mutation, as has happened with the Omicron variant.
But according to the scientists, the T cells that developed in response to other types of coronavirus target internal proteins within SARS-CoV-2. “If a similar approach is applied in the development of a universal vaccine, it might prevent infection from current and future variants,” the authors wrote.
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“The internal proteins targeted by the T cells that we identified mutate much less,” said Kundu of Imperial College London. In such a way that the development of new vaccines that include these internal proteins would induce T cells to protect once morest any type of variant of Covid-19, both current and future.
However, the study was small in scale and 88% of the participants were of white European ethnicity. So Kundu says the best way for people to protect themselves from Covid-19 right now is still to get vaccinated, including booster doses.
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