The post Lasting immunity seen after mild COVID-19 infection: report appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>A series of new studies have revealed signs of strong and lasting immunity in people who developed a mild coronavirus infection, according to a report on Sunday.
The studies, which have yet to be peer-reviewed, uncovered that antibodies and immune cells capable of recognizing the virus were apparently present months after infections concluded. The findings could help to eliminate the previous concerns over whether the virus could trick the immune system into having a poor memory of prior infections.
“This is exactly what you would hope for,” Marion Pepper, an immunologist at the University of Washington who authored one of the new studies told the New York Times. “All the pieces are there to have a totally protective immune response.”
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While scientists have yet to forecast how long the immune responses will last, researchers who have been monitoring immune responses to the virus for months now, believe the recent findings are encouraging signs.
Having those defense mechanisms present means the body has a good chance of fending off the coronavirus if reinfected.
“This is very promising,” said Smita Iyer, an immunologist at the University of California. “This calls for some optimism about herd immunity, and potentially a vaccine.”
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Pepper — who authored one of the new studies — said the next step will be confirming and getting proof on whether people are truly able to ward off the coronavirus after being exposed a second time, the paper reported.
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]]>The post Lasting heart damage could be COVID-19’s legacy for some non-hospitalized survivors appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>Disease restructures the heart muscle, according to new research
By Mike Moffitt, SFGATE
Published
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COVID-19 is known to cause severe damage to the lungs, but new studies indicate it may also harm the heart profoundly.
COVID-19 is known to cause severe damage to the lungs, but new studies indicate it may also harm the heart profoundly.
Photo: Peter Dazeley/Getty Images
Photo: Peter Dazeley/Getty Images
COVID-19 is known to cause severe damage to the lungs, but new studies indicate it may also harm the heart profoundly.
COVID-19 is known to cause severe damage to the lungs, but new studies indicate it may also harm the heart profoundly.
Photo: Peter Dazeley/Getty Images
In the early stages of the pandemic, doctors and scientists focused on how COVID-19 — an acute respiratory disease — attacks the lungs. Two new studies out of Germany suggest that even if patients escape hospitalization, the virus can damage the heart.
It’s too soon to determine if the damage is permanent, but the findings are not encouraging.
The first study, published Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Association Cardiology, looked at the cardiac MRIs of 100 relatively young patients who had recovered from COVID-19 and compared them to MRIs of 100 similar people who had not contracted the disease. Two-thirds of the patients recovered at home.
Two months following their recovery, 78 infected patients were found to have structural changes to their hearts. A biomarker indicating myocardial injury similar to that occurring in heart attacks was found in 76 patients. Sixty patients suffered inflammation of the heart.
The average age of the infected patients was 49. None had previous heart issues or other pre-existing conditions; in fact, many were skiers returning from vacation.
The second study, also published in JAMA Cardiology on Monday, examined autopsy reports from 39 people, 78 to 89 years old, who died in April. Analysis of cardiac tissue revealed the virus had infiltrated the hearts of 24 of the patients.
The studies’ results appeared to validate concerns expressed earlier this month by John Swartzberg, clinical professor emeritus of infectious diseases and vaccinology in the the UC Berkeley-UCSF Joint Medical Program.
“There is evidence now that the virus can directly attack heart muscle cells, and there’s also evidence that the cytokine storm that the virus triggers in the body not only damages the lungs, but can damage the heart,” Swartzberg told Berkeley News. “We don’t know what the long-term effects of that may be, but it could be that we will have a population of people who survive COVID-19 only to go on and have chronic cardiac problems.”
Among those problems are chronic heart failure, a progressive illness in which the heart slowly becomes less able to pump blood throughout the body.
Boston Red Sox pitcher Eduardo Rodriguez, 27, on Sunday confirmed that he was suffering from myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle, attributed to his coronavirus infection earlier this summer. Rodriguez had been cleared to pitch after testing negative, but the new diagnosis sidelined him.
Symptoms of myocarditis, according to the Mayo Clinic, include disruption of your heart muscle and your heart’s electrical system, reducing your heart’s ability to pump and causing rapid or abnormal heart rhythms (arrhythmias). The condition can lead to heart failure.
The Boston Globe’s Stat News was a source for this article.
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Mike Moffitt is an SFGATE Reporter. Email: moffitt@sfgate.com. Twitter: @Mike_at_SFGate
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