People who have had COVID-19 display signs of a weakened immune system 24 weeks following diagnosis, a doctor said on Wednesday.
The negative effects — including disruption of the normal mix of immune system cell types — can persist after recovery from COVID-19 and are particularly notable in people undergoing therapy for “long COVID,” Chiang Kuan-yu (姜冠宇), a doctor at Taipei City Hospital’s Zhongxing branch, wrote on Facebook, citing an Australian study published in January.
A study published in the US last month found that people experiencing long-term COVID-19 symptoms appear to have undergone changes to gene expression that decreases the potency of their “killer” T-cells, a key mechanism to fight off infections, Chiang said.
Instead of conferring immunity, exposure to COVID-19 might render a person more susceptible to subsequent infections by the virus or other pathogens, he said.
A study by Spain-based researchers published last month found that some people who have recovered from COVID-19 developed chronic inflammation and autoimmune disease, Chiang added.
The studies suggest that COVID-19 reinfections potentially cause progressive and cumulative damage to the immune system, which poses troubling implications for immunocompromised groups if they are accurate, he said.
Citing an article published on Monday in The Conversation — an online research news portal — by Australian epidemiologist Lara Herrero titled “I’ve had COVID and am constantly getting colds. Did COVID harm my immune system? Am I now at risk of other infectious diseases?” Chiang said that the resurgence of monkeypox and polio in some parts of the world might be connected to the pandemic, which might have weakened the immune systems of people who contracted COVID-19.
“Is the pandemic over or is something new emerging in its place?” he wrote. “I can only say that [US] President [Joe] Biden’s declarations [that the pandemic is over] are premature and [Biden’s chief medical adviser] Dr [Anthony] Fauci is right to give his rebuke.”
The medical community has yet to come to grips with minimizing the harm caused by COVID-19 and the governments of the world must be prepared for a long struggle, regardless of their choice to live with the disease or not, he wrote.
“The pathogen exists and it will continue to exist,” he wrote. “The right way of dealing with it depends on what we chose to value.”
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