Vaccination, antibodies, immunity: professor answered the most common questions about COVID-19 - ForumDaily
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Vaccination, antibodies, immunity: the professor answered the most common questions about COVID-19

Even a year after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, we still know little about this virus. Edition LEAGUE decided to talk to Professor Viktor Dosenko and ask him a few questions that concern the minds of all mankind.

Photo: Shutterstock

Victor Dosenko, a pathophysiologist, geneticist, head of the department of general and molecular pathophysiology at the Bogomolets Institute of Physiology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, spoke about how our immunity reacts to coronavirus and tries to fight it, where antibodies come from, and why re-infection is quite possible.

At the first encounter with a virus, according to the professor, our body is not at all ready and cannot recognize it, so it tries to “get to know”.

“It penetrates our cells and begins to synthesize its spare parts, its proteins that make it up, its RNA,” explains Dosenko.

The body, in response to the virus, tries to recognize it and form an immune response. The expert notes that this is a common reaction for all viruses.

“The immune system of most people works perfectly. Without problems, even sometimes without symptoms, it frees the body from virus-infected cells,” the professor emphasizes. “Here it should be noted right away that it is impossible to get rid of the virus without destroying the cells into which it has entered. They are doomed. The virus-infected cell must be destroyed. Special lymphocytes turn into blast cells, which multiply, there are a bunch of them, and the virus has no chance. In any cell where he ends up, he will be found and destroyed along with this cell.”

After recognizing the virus, our body turns on cellular immunity to fight intracellular infection.

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“The virus needs us only as factories for the production of its copies. “He doesn’t know how to reproduce without us,” explains Dosenko. “Therefore, only T-lymphocytes can destroy this intracellular parasite. Or they are also called T-killers, they work together with T-helpers.”

According to the expert, the fact that people carry the virus in different ways is quite normal and is due to various factors such as heredity, concomitant diseases and others.

“People are all different - both hereditary problems and acquired ones. Recent studies by American scientists have shown that people with AIDS and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome suffer much more severely and have a much higher mortality rate. Of course, with antiretroviral therapy they are compensated, but still the T-cell link in them suffers,” the professor clarifies.

“From other somatic diseases, among other things, the immune system suffers, antigen presentation, learning, and division of lymphocytes are disrupted. This is not surprising in the case of diabetes mellitus, coronary heart disease, atherosclerosis, and arterial hypertension. Just at an advanced age,” he clarified.

Our immune system, according to the scientist, undergoes "a kind of menopause" with age, so different groups of the population suffer from COVID-19 in different ways.

Another problem in the fight against the virus, according to the expert, is that when the immune system does not work properly, the body begins to connect other systems to fight, and they are often not only powerless, but can also aggravate the situation.

“First of all, complications of the disease appear associated with hyperactivation of neutrophil leukocytes,” explains the professor. “These cells have practically nothing to do with viral immunity. They can't do anything. Virus inside a cell. But if they are mistakenly activated, they come to the lungs and destroy them, not the virus. Hyperactivated nonspecific immunity is what is called cytokine storms. These people end up in hospitals, in intensive care, and, unfortunately, do not always recover.”

COVID-19 tests

There are mainly two types of tests for COVID-19 in the world - PCR and antigen tests. Dosenko supports the conduct of both, but believes that the second is not very accurate.

“Definitely the whole world, the recommendations of the World Health Organization, CDC, an American authoritative organization, clearly say that the diagnostic method is real-time PCR diagnostics. You need to take a scrub, extract RNA from it, turn it into DNA and determine whether there are genes for this particular virus,” says the professor. — Next comes the antigen test, which was developed much later. This is a quick test, but not as accurate. However, speed is his advantage. In 15-20 minutes you can determine whether there are virus proteins in the analysis material.”

But it should be borne in mind that many people are sick with COVID-19 and often do not have antibodies. Almost 20% of patients who did PCR-confirmed tests did not have antibodies.

“Vaccine manufacturers, by the way, are also obsessed with antibodies, but none of them have forgotten about cellular immunity. They studied precisely the presence of specific T-lymphocytes. And they showed that yes, these lymphocytes appear in case of vaccination and remain for a long time. Throughout the study, these lymphocytes remained in the blood,” says Dosenko. — Antibodies could exist, could disappear, could appear. This is a highly variable and imprecise indicator. The fact that a person was sick is an inaccurate indicator.”

According to the expert, cellular immunity is a much more evidence-based component.

In addition, it is the cellular immunity that helps to detect and destroy it faster during subsequent encounters with the virus.

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But the information that the more sick a person is with COVID-19, the easier it will be for him next time, according to the professor, is very controversial. After all, a severe course of the disease is an indicator of an incorrect immune response.

“The severe course of the disease is an indicator of defective specific immunity, a lack of lymphocytes that worked in time, and the reaction of nonspecific factors of the immune system, which led to the predominance of the destructive component of inflammation in the protective one,” says Dosenko.

But with an asymptomatic course, T-lymphocytes are formed, which will be fully equipped to meet the virus the next time.

Immunity after illness

After a person has been ill with COVID-19, after a while, immune cells commit "suicide." And only a small part of them remains to become "memory cells".

“Cells remember this information in different ways. For some infections - for years, for others - for a year, or even less. This is an interesting question: why our immune system remembers information about one virus or one bacteria for so long, even though it is not very dangerous, but forgets about another within six months or a year,” says Dosenko.

It’s hard to say what will happen with SARS-CoV-2. After all, only 1,4 years have passed since the start of the pandemic.

It is these cells that take part in the creation of herd immunity; each time they recognize the virus and destroy it. And due to this, the virus in the population decreases and decreases, it does not find unprepared bodies for its reproduction.

But as for SARS-CoV-2, it is difficult to say anything for sure, except to predict.

We are moving towards this, and in this we are primarily helped by cellular immunity.

“For us, this is an unknown field; scientists are trying to explain it to us in different ways. New research is emerging. But we don’t understand whether it will or won’t, or whether it will only apply to one strain of the virus, and then another will come, and in principle, there will be no such thing as collective immunity from SARS-CoV-2,” explains the professor.

“Collective immunity will definitely develop. There are no other options. But the question is when, how quickly and with what casualties,” he added. “But any infection still ends in herd immunity.”

Cellular collective immunity, according to the expert, is our future, and vaccination is a civilized way to accelerate the formation of this collective immunity.

Vaccination and immunity

The professor does not exclude such an option as is now happening with the flu: it mutates very often, which is why it is not easy to achieve herd immunity.

“The flu is a parasite that has taken hold of us and deceives the immune system, even if not every year, but quite often certain pandemic outbreaks occur, although they manage to get a vaccine,” says Dosenko. - Science will handle it. Let's see. So far I see no reason for SARS to become seasonal.”

He notes that even with frequent mutations, it will be possible to vaccinate several times a year to cope with the virus.

“At the population level, our immune system can handle any challenge. And it is up to scientists and doctors to create conditions so that as few people as possible die from the severe course of this or that disease, until collective immunity is formed. "

There are many theories in the world now about what is better - to get sick or to get vaccinated. Dosenko noted that there is still a difference, but if a person is at risk, then it is better not to wait for natural immunity and get vaccinated.

“When infected, you will receive all the variety of antigens of this virus, you will learn everything about it, all its proteins will enter your body and form an immune response. This will be a large spectrum of different lymphocytes capable of recognizing this particular virus,” comments Dosenko. — Artificial immunity is the introduction of information about exactly one protein. There is no information about others. But in fact, it turns out that knowing only a few fragments already reduces the likelihood of an infection.”

The professor says that the virus can infect absolutely everyone, and the course of the disease and its degree depend on the amount of the virus in the cells and the reaction of the body.

“They all have special proteins called eyc2.” This is the main beacon, bait for this virus. It recognizes our cells specifically if they have such a protein. All people, without exception, have this protein on the surface of various cells. In particular, the lining of the epithelium of the upper and lower respiratory tract,” explains Dosenko. “Therefore, everyone can become infected, and then it’s a question of how many particles get in, how effectively the virus will multiply.”

Our cells have nonspecific defense mechanisms against any virus.

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“We are now studying this process of so-called RNA editing. When the virus creates its RNA, the immune reaction replaces the information in it, the scientist says. “The effectiveness of RNA editing may determine that certain people do not develop the disease.” “Everyone will definitely be infected, and whether the disease will occur can be explained by the presence and effectiveness of these primary nonspecific defense mechanisms against viruses.”

But it must take 10-12 days to produce antibodies. And about 14 days after the ingestion of the antigen, so that it gives cellular immunity. That is, in two weeks, our new mRNA vaccines should provide protection.

Immunity problems due to antibiotics

Dosenko notes that the widespread antibiotic therapy used by doctors to treat COVID-19 is pointless and can harm the immune system and disrupt its work.

“There are and should be bacteria in our body. And antibiotics will definitely find them and kill them. Killing our microflora will immediately affect the state of the immune system,” the professor notes. — And imbalance will lead to the fact that the immune system will begin to react inappropriately. She may not react, or she may, on the contrary, react powerfully to something that does not need to be noticed at all. And this balance is disrupted when antibiotics are used.”

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