Repeated blood samples turned up important differences in their blood: A group of proteins indicated that a part of the body’s immune system called the complement system remained activated long after it should have returned to normal.
“When you have a viral or bacterial infection, the complement system becomes activated and binds to these viruses and bacteria and then eliminates them,” said Dr. Onur Boyman, a professor of immunology at the University of Zurich in Switzerland and one of the study’s investigators. The system then returns to its resting state, where its regular job is to clear the body of dead cells, he said.
But if the complement system remains in its microbe-fighting state after the viruses and bacteria are eliminated, “it starts damaging healthy cells,” he said.
Scary. But I’m glad they’re continuing the research and making progress. Article says about 14% of adults get long covid. Potentially quite a few people.
Since there’s 8 billion people on the planet and pretty much everyone has caught covid, that 14% statistic means about 1 billion people have long covid
Why does it take so long to work this out? The complement system is one of the first things you learn about in immunology, there exist standardised blood tests for monitoring it
Scary. But I’m glad they’re continuing the research and making progress. Article says about 14% of adults get long covid. Potentially quite a few people.
Since there’s 8 billion people on the planet and pretty much everyone has caught covid, that 14% statistic means about 1 billion people have long covid
In Canada they said it was
1/81/9 had it, and half of that still had it as of June 2023Do we even know if there might be reservoirs left? Maybe they are there for a reason.
Why does it take so long to work this out? The complement system is one of the first things you learn about in immunology, there exist standardised blood tests for monitoring it