Omicron: David Davis outlines crucial Covid passport flaw
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A team of researchers in Spain has called on people who have not been infected with Covid, despite living with an infected person, to come forward. The SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 has been proven to affect people differently, with some experiencing mild symptoms while others face hospitalisation or death. It is still unclear how and why people can react so differently, but even more intriguing are the people who don’t appear to be affected at all.
According to the latest figures published by the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 267 million people globally have contracted the virus since late 2019, and more than 5.2 million people have died.
But what about people who have not contracted the virus despite being in a situation where the chances of infection were extremely likely if not inevitable?
Researchers at the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL) in Barcelona are on the hunt for people who have tested negative for Covid antibodies after coming into close contact with the virus.
There is a possibility these people boast a natural “super-resistance” to the virus and that could open pathways to new treatments for the disease.
This possibility was discussed in a research paper published in the journal Nature in October and involved researchers from 10 nations.
According to a report in the Spanish newspaper 20minutos, the researchers are looking for adults aged 18 and older who have been exposed to moderate cases of Covid for three to five days but have not been infected.
Ideally, the researchers said, the contact with Covid would have ocurred while sharing a bedroom.
This includes healthcare workers who live with or care for infected people who have not developed any symptoms and have not shown any antibodies at four weeks.
To qualify for the study, the volunteers have to test negative for IgM or IgG antibodies.
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And the researchers stressed they are not looking for people who have naturally developed “superantibodies” after becoming infected.
Aurora Pujol, a researcher at IDIBELL, said: “These patients have immunity for other reasons.
“The ‘superantibodies’ would be ‘super-responses’ of the immune system that would effectively block the virus, but it has to have had a previous entry for these antibodies to be produced, and therefore these patients would have positive serologies.”
So far, 50 volunteers have come forward but hundreds more are expected to be found across Spain.
Internationally, the researchers said thousands of people are expected to get in touch.
The study is being carried out as part of the Covid Human Genetic Effort (CovidHGE) consortium – and international effort to ” discover inborn errors of immunity underlying severe forms of COVID-19″.
According to Dr Pujol, the researchers want to know whether any specific changes in the volunteers’ DNA are “involved in the fusion and entry of the virus into human cells.”
In other words, genetic mutation present “probably since birth” may be responsible for preventing the coronavirus from entering human cells.
Dr Pujol said: “We are looking for mutations in the DNA, the genetic code that people have from birth that make the cells of these people insurmountable barriers to SARS-COV-2.”
The researchers are expecting to publish their preliminary results in the next six to eight months.
Their study, they hope, will greatly advance the development of Covid treatments.
Dr Pujol added: “Finding changes in the DNA in genes that facilitate the entry of the virus into cells or the first stages of viral multiplication (replication) will allow us to design specific pharmacological or other treatments that perform the same function, that is, to close the door of our cells to the viral invader.”
If you match the criteria, you can enrol in the study on the CovidHGE website.
Additional reporting by Maria Ortega.
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