The “Long COVID” study examines the effects of vaccines on patient symptoms

Within the past few months, some people with prolonged symptoms of COVID-19 have reported surprising things. Vaccination seems to improve their condition. Known as “long horror” or “long COVID” people, these patients suffer from many systemic symptoms that can make walking, concentration, and breathing difficult.

Now scientists A new study to find out how vaccination affects these individuals, And whether the vaccine can provide therapeutic clues.Researchers are currently recruiting people over the age of 18 who have not been vaccinated yet and have COVID-19 symptoms for more than 2 months since the first infection, research leader Akiko Iwasaki, A researcher at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Yale University announced in May.

Iwasaki’s team will collect blood and saliva samples before and after vaccination to examine participants’ immune responses. It can even tell researchers what is causing long-term COVID and suggest treatments that may cure it.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention already recommends Vaccinations for people infected with COVID-19However, developing long-term COVID treatment options is very important, says Iwasaki – especially as the number of cases continues to grow. “Even after the pandemic is contained, millions of people in the United States will have long-term symptoms,” she says. “Unfortunately, this is the next step in COVID and we need to come up with a solution.”

Listen to the patient

Iwasaki’s new research was partly inspired by discussions on social media. Since the beginning of the pandemic, immunologist Iwasaki has been at the forefront of COVID-19 science communication. On Twitter, she grabs the handle @VirusesImmunity With about 130,000 followers, Iwasaki shared the latest coronavirus study, detailed her own COVID-19 study, and in some cases suggested a theory as to why the symptoms of the disease persisted.

She is also listening. Earlier this year, Iwasaki began hearing hints that COVID-19 vaccination might help some long-haul carriers feel better. The infectious disease doctor she follows found that in some patients the symptoms were alleviated after vaccination. And Research Of the 931 long-haul carriers in the grassroots Survivor Corps 42% reported improvement after vaccination.. (Approximately 14% of survey respondents were sick and the rest were unaware of the difference before and after vaccination.) The study has not yet investigated this phenomenon, but “evidence from the community is that vaccines I’m accumulating that I may be doing something, says Iwasaki.

Long COVID, also known as the acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 (PASC) and Acute COVID-19 Syndrome (PACS), remains a predominantly medical mystery.Scientists know that this condition can last more than nine months after the initial infection and can sometimes spark. Disable symptomatology collectionFatigue, “brain fog”, headaches, muscle aches, etc. The exact number of people infected with the coronavirus is unknown, World Health Organization estimates about 10 percent..

People with mild COVID-19 cases, or even asymptomatic people, can be affected. Some studies suggest that long COVIDs are more likely to affect women than men, and that young people are not without risk. “Many people think that if you are healthy and in your twenties or thirties, you don’t need a vaccine,” says Iwasaki. “That’s not true.” She saw a young, active woman with no underlying condition being mysteriously struck by relentless, energy-depriving symptoms. “Suddenly, they were debilitated by a long-distance illness,” says Iwasaki.

Currently, there are no long established COVID diagnostic tests and treatment options are limited. David Putrino, a physiotherapist and neuroscientist at Mount Sinai Health System, has been working with COVID patients for several months in developing rehabilitation programs.Physical therapy twice a week for an average of 65 days Reduces fatigue by 30%, His team reported in April on the preprint site Research Square.

“Patients who couldn’t climb the stairs are now standing up and running,” he says. “It’s encouraging,” he points out, but the program is focused and the profits are relatively modest. “I’m worried about anything that takes 65 days to rehabilitate.”

Looking for a cure

The decisive need for effective long-term COVID treatment has aroused the interest of the scientific community. In February, Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, said A $ 1.15 billion initiative to identify the cause of long-term COVID and find ways to prevent and cure the disease..

“Little is known so far,” says Putrino. “To develop a treatment that works more effectively, we need to understand the pathophysiology of this condition.” In other words, scientists need to unearth the roots that underlie long COVIDs, why that. Needs to be clarified if it occurs in some patients and not in others.

Iwasaki has several theories. After infection, people in this condition may not have removed the virus from their bodies. The virus can persist in hidden reservoirs that are not detected by nasal swabs. This stealth virus replicates, the body fights, and the cycle and symptoms of COVID-19 continue. Persistent symptoms can also be due to SARS-CoV-2 RNA or some of the proteins. It is a “virus ghost” that remains in the body after the primary infection has passed. These viral spectators are the remaining fragments that are not infectious, but can drive the immune system to continuous action and cause long-term inflammation. Alternatively, COVID-19 causes an autoimmune disease that encourages the body to constantly attack itself.

Iwasaki writes that there is some evidence in these theories and they are not mutually exclusive. Articles about Medium March. Her team and others have already discovered “autoantibodies,” which are immune proteins that target the body instead of viruses in some patients with COVID-19.

Iwasaki worked with Putrino to see if people with long COVIDs are more likely to produce these autoantibodies. They also look for other strange things in the immune response. The study, which began collecting blood samples last week, is being conducted in parallel with the study Iwasaki is currently recruiting participants for.

To understand how the COVID-19 vaccine affects long-haul carriers, Iwasaki’s team enrolls patients near her laboratory in New Haven, Connecticut, which has not yet been vaccinated. I am planning to do that. Researchers have begun recruiting participants locally, but hope to open their research nationwide. They monitor participants’ immune responses before and after vaccination to see if immune factors correlate with improvement in symptoms.

Vaccines can, for example, temporarily trick the immune system to alienate rogue immune cells from attacking the body. Vaccines can also increase the production of antibodies or immune cells that eradicate the protracted virus. “It’s amazing – it’s a permanent cure,” says Iwasaki.

No matter what the team finds, Iwasaki is confident that he will learn something new about the process of illness. “I haven’t even scratched the surface,” she says, of understanding the long COVID. “Ultimately, we want to protect people and relieve their symptoms.”

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Anyone interested in participating in Dr. Iwasaki’s long COVID study can be contacted [email protected] You can know in detail.

Video Source: HHMI Employee Town Hall on COVID-19 Vaccine, April 7, 2021. Moderators: Aileen O’Hearn, HHMI’s Tangled Bank Studios and scientific editor of public media.