Understanding how some people naturally resist Covid-19 infection despite being clearly exposed to the virus could lead to better vaccines, researchers say.
A team from University College London (UCL) in the United Kingdom says that some individuals already had a degree of immunity to Covid before the onset of the pandemic.
This is likely a result of your body learning to fight viruses related to the one that swept the world.
Updating vaccines to copy this protection could make immunizers even more effective, the team said.
protective cells
Scientists closely monitored hospital staff during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic — through, for example, regular collection of blood samples.
Despite being in a high-risk environment, not everyone in the study took Covid. The results, published in the scientific journal Nature, show that some people simply managed to avoid the virus.
About one in ten has had signs of exposure, but has never had symptoms, has never tested positive, and has never developed antibodies to Covid in the blood.
Part of your immune system was able to control the virus before it took hold — what is known as an “abortive infection.”
Blood samples revealed that these people already had (before the pandemic) protective T cells, which recognize and kill cells infected with the virus causing Covid.
According to Leo Swadling, one of the researchers, their immune system was already “ready” to fight the new disease.
These T cells were able to detect a different part of the virus than the part that most current vaccines train the immune system to find.
The immunizers largely target the spike protein, which covers the outer surface of the virus that causes Covid. However, these rare T cells were able to look inside the virus and find the proteins needed for its replication.
“Healthcare professionals who were able to control the virus before it was detected were more likely to have these T cells, which recognize the internal machinery, before the start of the pandemic,” added Swadling.
These internal proteins are very similar in all related species of coronaviruses, including those that are widespread and cause symptoms of the common cold.
This means that targeting these proteins with a vaccine might offer some protection against all coronaviruses and new variants.
The team says that the current vaccines are doing an excellent job of preventing people from becoming seriously ill, but not so good at preventing them from getting Covid.
“I think everyone could see that they could be better,” says teacher Mala Maini.
“What we hope, by including these T cells, is that they can protect against infection as well as disease, and we hope that they will be better at recognizing new variants that appear.”
While almost everyone may have caught these common cold coronaviruses, not everyone will have developed the right kind of protective T cells.
It may be that health professionals are more regularly exposed to viruses through their work, which is why some of them had the protection.
“The insights from this study could be crucial in designing a different type of vaccine,” says Alexander Edwards of the University of Reading, UK.
“We hope this study will lead to further advances in vaccine development, as we need every type of vaccine we can get.”
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