🦠New research has revealed that some forms of the common cold can offer protection against Covid-19.
This is thanks to residual infection-fighting T-cells that prevent the virus from taking hold
Thread 🧵👇
telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness…
The study, by UCL monitored a group of 750 healthcare workers in the first wave of the pandemic.
➡️They found that 58 never tested positive, despite being in a high risk environment
🗣️“We think people (who resisted the infection) already had some T-cells from previous infections,” says Professor Mala Maini.
“And that allowed them to mount a very quick response that could abort the infection”
telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness…
💉“Antibodies are very good at preventing infection from getting into the cells," Prof Maini adds.
“But, if some of the virus gets into your cells, the T-cells can do a great job at clearing those infected cells”
“People have always thought of T-cells as being a secondary line of defence that comes later on.
🔬“But what’s interesting is our work and several other studies on Covid, are showing that they can actually act very, very early on”
telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness…
Prof Maini explained: “We think the way they’re doing that is because they’ve already been primed by a previous infection.
👉“So they’re in a state where they can kick into action much quicker than normal”
🤒That doesn’t mean the common cold will automatically boost your immunity.
“Only 10% of what we recognise as common colds are actually caused by coronaviruses,” says Prof Maini.
“Just because you had a common cold doesn’t mean you’ve actually had a coronavirus”
💉While the current vaccines do reduce infection rates, Prof Maini says targeting and generating T-cells will add another layer of protection.
“What we’re saying is let’s specifically target both the spike, which we’re already doing, and this new area”
telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness…
🗣️Current vaccines “are reducing infection rate, but not as much as we ideally would like”
Read the full story here 👇
telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness…
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