Dr. P.D. Gupta
Former Director Grade Scientist, Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad
E-Mail: pdg2000@hotmail.com Cell: 080728 91356
Corona belongs to lowly evolved family of Influenza viruses, where as we belong to highly evolved family of human being. We always carry about 2 kg of corona’s relatives in our body known as microbiota comprises of bacteria, viruses, fungus and some prototype of plants and animals. Then why there are so many hue and cries about corona? SARS-CoV-2, the corona virus that causes COVID-19, appears to be most contagious at the start of an infection, before people even know they have it. The virus production may be strongest at the start of the infection before the immune system kicks in to kill viruses and produce symptoms.
Analyzing 77 infector-infectee pairs allowed researchers to calculate when people are most contagious. The team estimates that contagiousness starts 2.3 days before symptoms begin and peaks 0.7 days before symptoms start.
Corona is smart; the virus doesn’t seem to kill man and woman equally, it mostly infects men, afraid of women. Then men must be weaker than women. What is secrete behind this? May be due to immune variations — some genetic and /or some acquired — the virus hits some people much harder than others. It all depends on how our bodies respond to the virus. There’s another explanation for women’s immunological advantage.; women have an inherent advantage when it comes to diseases because of their two X chromosomes.
Scientists are now investigating whether specific HLA genes give some people higher or lower degrees of protection against the virus. So-called trained immunity is just as key in bolstering viral resistance,. Some researchers speculate that if you’ve gotten other coronaviruses in the past, your immunity to COVID-19 might be somewhat higher, though by no means airtight.
New research show that in smokers, these receptors are more prevalent, creating more potential access routes for the virus. “If you smoke,” Harb says, “the virus will be able to enter more cells in higher numbers.”
After COVID-19 forces its way into cells, immune signaling proteins called cytokines start acting like warning sirens, bringing the body’s cellular attack force to the scene. Cytokines are “normally made in any immune response to recruit more immune cells or induce tissue repair,”
Men are more likely than women to die of the coronavirus, so scientists are treating them with something women have more of: female sex hormones Hormones play a role as well: Testosterone can inhibit the immune system, while estrogen can stimulate it. Though, it is weak evidence, pregnant women, who are usually immunocompromised but have high levels of estrogen and progesterone, tend to have mild courses of the disease. “So something about being a woman is protective, and something about pregnancy is protective, and that makes us think about hormones. Some experts who study sex differences in immunity, however, warned that hormones may fail to be the magic bullet that some are hoping for; even elderly women with Covid-19 are outliving their male peers, and there is a drastic reduction in levels of hormones for women after menopause.
Protection from Covid -19 depends on a group of biological factors. There is a variability existing in every individual and that is why some are more prone to covid-19 then others. These variable factors are the female sex hormone estrogen, which appears to play a role in immunity, and the fact that women carry two X chromosomes, which contain immune-related genes. Men, of course, carry only one. Experiments in which mice were exposed to the SARS coronavirus found that the males were more susceptible to infection than the females, a disparity that increased with age.
