Knowing how the immune system treats viral infections is of utmost importance in the process of establishing antiviral therapy. Remember that viruses are not bacteria and therefore antibiotics have no effect on them.
Laboratories have made great strides in creating antivirals and antiretrovirals to combat particles like the hepatitis C virus or the human immunodeficiency virus, for example. Reductions in viral loads that stabilize patients have even been achieved.
However, there is a bigger problem in chronic viral infections, which is the overlap of diseases. Many people infected with viruses are superinfected by bacteria or fungi. Such is the case with the current coronavirus, to which a bacterial pneumonia can be added.
In order to reveal the intimate mechanisms of the immune system’s fight against viral infections, some studies are carried out combining infections. This is the case with recent research from the University of Birmingham that was published at the end of February.
The study to learn how the immune system treats viral infections
This article to which we refer was published in the journal PLOS Pathogens by authors associated with the University of Birmingham, the Pirbright Institute and the University College of London. The research was led by Professor Robin May.
For the study, the researchers analyzed virus-infected white blood cells, which were exposed to a particular fungus : Cryptococcus neoformans . It is an opportunistic fungus, that is, it is installed in people with a weakened immune system.
This comparison between what happened in a laboratory and what happens in real life is extremely important. Diseases such as the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) cause a depletion of the defenses that does not kill by itself, but by superinfection.
Opportunistic fungi take advantage of the host’s weak immune system to settle and reproduce. Ultimately, complications and even death occur from pneumonia or fungal sepsis, and not from the initial virus.
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