A new study has found that individuals who had exposure to the common cold coronavirus also may have built up some pre-existing immunity to the genetically related virus, Covid-19.
The study, led by researchers at Rutgers University and Lagos University Teaching Hospital in Nigeria, may help bolster global infectious disease preparedness and vaccine development with its insights, according to a Rutgers press release.
The study examined the immune responses from two groups of people living in Lagos and Nigeria: health care workers in a teaching hospital and members of the general population from five different locations.
"Of the 83% of individuals in our study who had common cold coronavirus exposure, we found that their T cells cross-reacted to SARS-CoV-2, hinting at the fact that people who have been exposed to these genetically related coronaviruses have immune responses that may be protecting them from future SARS-CoV-2 infections," said Bobby Brooke Herrera, an assistant professor of global health at Rutgers Global Health Institute and a lead author of the study along with Sulaimon Akanmu of Lagos University Teaching Hospital in Nigeria.
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The study's researchers say their findings are unique because it examined people at a time during the pandemic when the vaccine was still being administered, so data was collected on individuals before and after they received the shot.
Now researchers are hoping to use what they have learned to develop a T cell-based vaccine that could help protect against future Covid-19 variants.
“We’re trying to understand if T cell-based vaccines truly cross-protect,” Herrera said. “We know that they can cross-recognize other coronaviruses, but not whether cross-recognition actually means cross-protection. If it does, that potentially leads to a novel strategy for coronavirus vaccine development.”
