Scientists from Yale University have found that rhinovirus can save you from getting the flu.
At Yale University New Haven, data from more than thirty thousand people were analyzed, collected by scientists over three years of active scientific work. Experts compared cases of respiratory diseases and noticed that during periods when epidemics of influenza and rhinovirus raged, the second dominated.
Lead researcher of the project, associate professor of the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Immunobiology Ellen Foxman said that out of thirty thousand people, only a few could be sick with both the flu and rhinovirus.
– When we looked at the data, it became clear that very few people had both viruses at the same time
Ellen Foxman
The results obtained from the study can be successfully used in the fight against the coronavirus COVID-19 in order to try to weaken the influence of the latter on the human body, trying to supplant it with rhinovirus, but it is too early to guess. Scientists are now trying to figure out how the coronavirus will behave in conjunction with seasonal rhinovirus.
– It is impossible to predict how two viruses will interact without doing research
Ellen Foxman
To recreate the environment for experiments, scientists at Yale University grew from stem cells the human respiratory tract, which was later infected, first with rhinovirus, and then with influenza. The experiment also proved that it is hardly possible to infect tissues infected with rhinovirus with influenza.
– Antiviral protection was included even before the flu virus appeared
Ellen Foxman
Later, experts found that the human body, in response to infection with rhinovirus, synthesizes the antiviral agent interferon, which is part of the immune system’s early response to disease.
Previously Media stream reported that scientists from the University of Chicago Medical University have found that the risk of contracting coronavirus can increase vitamin D deficiency.
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