CovOps
Location : Ether-Sphere Job/hobbies : Irrationality Exterminator Humor : Über Serious
| Subject: Quick! Catch Tuberculosis! May Protect Against COVID-19 Thu Mar 24, 2022 11:04 pm | |
| Mice previously infected by tuberculosis mysteriously dodged COVID-19, for reasons we’re still trying to figure out.
Though the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic (possibly? hopefully?) may be behind us, so too might be our immunity to the virus, whether it’s through vaccination or through natural infection. In February, the CDC announced that while vaccine boosters were 91 percent effective in preventing hospitalization after two months, that number slipped to 78 percent after four months. The jury is still out on whether a fourth booster is necessary.
As this plays out, a bizarre yet interesting wrinkle has emerged: tuberculosis infection somehow prevents coronavirus infection. In a new study published Thursday in the journal PLOS Pathogens, researchers at the Ohio State University found that mice infected with the bacteria that causes tuberculosis were resistant to falling sick after exposure to the alpha variant of COVID.
“This research might explain why some [people] have never gotten COVID,” Dr. Shira Doron, a hospital epidemiologist at Tufts Medical Center who was not part of the study, told The Daily Beast. “[And whether] there are any treatments or preventative measures we could leverage.”
.https://www.thedailybeast.com/tuberculosis-infection-may-protect-against-covid-19
|
|