Future coronavirus treatment may include meds that boost the number of T-cells in the blood, which are capable of neutralizing pathogens that infect the body.
Statements from experts including the WHO and Dr. Anthony Fauci that said the novel coronavirus might never go away sound alarming, but that’s not the whole story. The flu never went away and won’t disappear even though we have vaccines that can provide temporary immunity. But the flu is a highly manageable infectious disease. We have various lines of treatment that work, and we all know how to treat its symptoms and when to seek medical attention. COVID-19 is still an illness that lacks a standard treatment, although doctors have been testing all sorts of therapies that work, including some promising vaccine candidates. Others are developing brand new meds that are meant to prevent the virus from replicating and provide brief periods of immunity. These are antibody-based drugs that could improve the condition of COVID-19 patients by giving a helping hand to their immune systems. Antibody-rich plasma from COVID-19 survivors proved this type of therapy works in severe cases.
Now, researchers from the UK have made a new discovery related to the immune response that could help physicians predict which COVID-19 cases will worsen. It may even offer them a way to treat those severe cases.
Doctors treating COVID-19 patients who developed life-threatening complications found they have extremely low numbers of T-cells.
