2023-05-05 18:56:03
MONTREAL — The COVID-19 virus could hide in the lining of the gut and cause long-lasting COVID symptoms by keeping the immune system on high alert, suggests a new study involving a researcher from Laval University.
This strategy would be somewhat similar to that adopted by HIV, which also hides in the mucous membranes to escape the immune system.
We find in the intestine a microbial flora that allows us to digest our food, recalled Jérome Estaquier, who is a full professor in the department of microbiology-infectiology and immunology of the Faculty of Medicine of Laval University.
“There is therefore a tolerance, that is to say that the individual will accept things and will therefore avoid responding too much against these ‘aggressors’, he said. So, ultimately, it’s a site that’s pretty agent-friendly because our system is pretty compassionate.”
The virus therefore manages to avoid total destruction by settling “in a rather favorable environment”, added Professor Estaquier.
The researchers analyzed blood samples from 127 people, half of whom had long-term COVID, and 37 controls who were not infected. They also had blood samples taken from 72 of these patients during the acute phase of their infection.
The researchers identified in about eight out of ten subjects blood markers that are rather rare in patients who have not developed a long form of COVID-19.
Some of these detected markers usually only have a lifespan of four or six weeks, explained Professor Estaquier, and the fact that they can still be detected six months after the initial infection demonstrates that the virus remains present in the body.
“It actually suggests that the virus sets in, and this, after several months, since the study is done six months post-infection, and that therefore this persistence would be associated with this more chronic pathology”, he said.
We normally start talking about a long COVID after two or three months of symptoms. Being able to detect signs of an immune response six months later is therefore surprising, admitted the researcher.
This discovery could lead, initially, to the development of tests which will make it possible to detect the presence of the virus several weeks, even several months, after the initial infection, which will make it possible to make a more precise diagnosis.
“If we have virus which persists after six months and which is responsible for these various disorders, and there may even be virus which settles in the brain, then we must find therapeutics, perhaps antiviral, which would perhaps make it possible to eliminate the residual foci, and to reduce the consequences of this viral persistence which is the cause of these disorders”, concluded Professor Estaquier.
The findings of this study were published by the scientific journal Nature Communications.
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