Breakthrough discovery might reveal what causes Long COVID

• Researchers from Yale might have discovered why some of the patients infected with the novel coronavirus develop severe forms of COVID-19.
• They found that patients with severe COVID-19 developed autoantibodies that attacked healthy cells instead of the virus, including interferon and B and T cells, thus hindering the immune response to the infection.
• The researchers speculate that this autoimmune response might favor Long COVID.
• If the hypothesis is correct, doctors will be able to formulate new therapies to treat patients experiencing long-term effects of the virus.

The more time passes, the more COVID-19 mysteries can be explained. Now, a team of Yale researchers might have just delivered what appears to be another breakthrough discovery. If their hypothesis is accurate, then the scientists might have provided the first explanation for Long COVID, the chronic type of coronavirus-like illness that follows the infection in some patients.

This team of researchers discovered that “friendly fire” from the immune system might be responsible for many severe COVID-19 cases. The explanation makes sense, considering that the main worry for doctors is the exacerbated immune response some patients develop. But the study pinpoints a type of malfunction inside the immune system that can actively worsen the COVID-19 prognosis. They say it’s autoantibodies that can attack healthy cells, including immune cells that would fight the SARS-CoV-2 virus, like B and T white blood cells. And the persistence of these autoantibodies might then induce Long COVID in patients, the illness where COVID-19 survivors keep experiencing symptoms weeks or even months after clearing the virus.

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Breakthrough discovery might reveal what causes Long COVID originally appeared on BGR.com on Mon, 14 Dec 2020 at 11:04:39 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.