Patients Recovered From COVID-19 Build Immune System Response To The Disease, We Are The Vaccine!

Dhir Acharya - May 19, 2020

Researchers found that our bodies build a solid antiviral immune system response to COVID-19 after winning over the virus. There's new hope for a vaccine.

If you feel it’s hopeless to find a cure or vaccine for the coronavirus, here’s some good news to keep you optimistic. In a new study, researchers found that after fighting off the coronavirus, our bodies build a solid antiviral immune system response to the disease.

The study, conducted by researchers from La Jolla Institute for Immunology in the US, indicates promising results to assist the development of a COVID-19 vaccine.

The human body will build an immune system response against COVID-19

The study’s author Alessandro Sette, also a professor at the Center for Infectious Disease and Vaccine Research, said:

“If we had seen only marginal immune responses, we would have been concerned. But what we see is a very robust T cell response against the spike protein, which is the target of most ongoing COVID-19 efforts, as well as other viral proteins.”

The study involved observation of 20 people recovering from COVID-19. The findings of this study help researchers understand how the human body reacts to the coronavirus and build immunity in response, which is needed to develop a vaccine for the virus.

The study shines new light on COVID-19 vaccine development

As of now, researchers across the globe have identified the spike protein as the key to how SARS-CoV-2 invades a human cell. Specifically, the protein latches itself to the receptors on the human cell, then joins with their membranes. This way, the virus can enter the human cell. Sette explained:

“We specifically chose to study people who had a normal disease course and didn’t require hospitalization to provide a solid benchmark for what a normal immune response looks like, since the virus can do some very unusual things in some people.”

The study found that all the observed 20 patients had a healthy T cell playing a crucial role in the immune system, which is also a response that helped the body generate antibodies. These T cells then eliminated cells infected with the coronavirus.

As the entire world is still searching for a vaccine and the pressure is rising as the global tally has surpassed 4.7 million, this is really good news for us. Let’s keep our hopes up.