The world’s deadliest diseases currently include tuberculosis and Covid-19. With 10 million tuberculosis cases annually, the disease is widespread. Scientists have wondered whether the immune response triggered by this severe respiratory infection could protect people from contracting the coronavirus.
Research in mice brings new insights
For their study, the research team first infected mice with tuberculosis and then with Covid-19. Richard Robinson from Ohio State University and his colleagues were surprised to find that the mice did not develop any signs of corona. The researchers assume that the immune response to tuberculosis prevents the Covid-19 virus from taking hold and multiplying. “To be honest, at first we thought: if we introduce an additional lung disease, it would accelerate death. But it wasn’t like that. The animals with tuberculosis were resistant to Sars-CoV 2,” says Robinson.
The interaction of the diseases should be further researched
The researchers do not see a new form of therapy for corona in their discovery. However, this finding could explain why people have so rarely contracted tuberculosis and Covid-19 at the same time. And also why countries tend to have high rates of infection with either Covid-19 or tuberculosis, but not both. The scientists suggest that future research should focus on the interaction between Covid-19 and tuberculosis infections in humans.
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