Solopos.com, JAKARTA – Researchers at Yale University discovered a new fact that exposure to rhinovirus the cause of the common cold can protect humans from infection by viruses corona cause of Covid-19. Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut is the third oldest institution of higher education in the United States.
In a new study, researchers found that this respiratory or common cold virus initiates gene activity that is stimulated by interferon, an early response molecule in the immune system that can stop the SARS-CoV-2 virus from replicating in infected airway tissue.
The findings raise the question that the interferon produced by the flu could prevent or treat infection, said Ellen Foxman, assistant professor of laboratory medicine and immunobiology at Yale School of Medicine and senior author of the study. One way to do this is to treat patients with interferon, an immune system protein that is also available as a drug.
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“But it all depends on the timing,” Foxman said.
The results of the study were published June 15 in the Journal of Experimental Medicine. Previous research has shown that in the late stages of Covid-19, high interferon levels correlate with worse disease and can trigger an overactive immune response. But recent genetic studies suggest that interferon-stimulated genes may also be protective in cases of Covid-19 infection.
Foxman’s lab wanted to study this defense system early in the course of Covid-19 infection. Because previous research by Foxman’s lab showed that the common cold virus could protect against influenza, they decided to study whether rhinoviruses would have the same beneficial effect against the Covid-19 virus.
Respiratory Tract Infection
For the study, his team infected laboratory-grown human airway tissue with SARS-CoV-2 and found that during the first three days, the viral load in the tissue doubled every six hours. However, the replication of the Covid-19 virus was completely stopped in tissues that had been exposed to the rhinovirus. If antiviral defenses are blocked, SARS-CoV-2 can replicate in airway tissue previously exposed to rhinovirus.
The same defenses slowed SARS-CoV-2 infection even without rhinovirus, but only if the infectious dose was low, suggesting that viral load at the time of exposure makes a difference whether the body can fight infection effectively.
The researchers also studied nasal swab samples from patients diagnosed close to the onset of infection. They found evidence of rapid growth of SARS-CoV-2 in the first few days of infection, followed by activation of the body’s defenses. According to their findings, the virus usually increases rapidly during the first few days of infection, before host defense begins, doubling every six hours as seen in the laboratory; in some patients the virus grows faster.
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“There appears to be a viral sweet spot early in Covid-19, where the virus replicates exponentially before triggering a strong defensive response,” Foxman said.
Interferon treatments are promising but can be tricky, he says, because most will be effective in the days immediately following infection, when many people are asymptomatic. In theory, interferon treatment could be used as prophylaxis in high-risk people who have been in close contact with other people diagnosed with Covid-19. Trials of interferon in Covid-19 are ongoing, and so far suggest a possible benefit early in infection, but not when administered later.
The findings could help explain why at times of year when colds are common, infection rates with other viruses such as influenza tend to be lower, Foxman said.
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