Severe Covid-19 disease has the potential to trigger the patient’s immune system to produce so-called autoantibodies, which can eventually attack healthy tissues and cause inflammatory and other autoimmune diseases. This is the conclusion of a new international scientific study led by a Greek researcher on the Diaspora.
The researchers, led by biopathologist Dr. Chrysanthi Skevaki of the Institute of Laboratory Medicine at the University of Marburg in Germany and Dr. Paul Outz of Stanford University in California, published their findings in the journal Nature blood from 147 Covid-19 patients and found that about half (50%) had produced autoantibodies in their body, compared with only 15% in the control group of 41 healthy volunteers.
The scientists had taken blood samples when the patients were admitted to the hospital, as well as on different days of hospitalization, and thus were able to record the evolution of IgG autoantibodies over time. It was found that within a week one-fifth of patients (20%) had developed new autoantibodies that were not present at the start of treatment.
Dr. Outz pointed out the need to vaccinate people, as “one can not know in advance if, when they get sick with Covid-19, it will be a mild case. “If someone gets seriously ill, they can have a problem for life, because the coronavirus can disrupt their autoimmunity.”
At present, however, scientists do not have long-term data to know with certainty how long autoantibodies can remain in a patient’s body, but they consider it possible that a patient with Covid-19 may eventually develop autoimmunity. disease.
Link to the scientific publication:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-25509-3
SOURCE: AMNA
