Key Points
- Australian-led research into cells fighting long COVID could help develop new coronavirus treatments and vaccines.
- A Doherty Institute study found that memory T cells can recognize and fight long COVID for up to two years.
- The research could guide new vaccines and therapies, particularly for patients with long COVID.
Special cells with long memories could help produce new coronavirus treatments thanks to groundbreaking Australian research.
A Doherty Institute study found that memory “T cells” that recognize long COVID can establish themselves and fight off subsequent infections for two years.
T cells fight viral infections by killing infected cells and can remember what they have encountered.
The study, which targeted the previously understudied area of long-COVID immunity, found that specific T cells in all 31 people examined were able to retain their key characteristics over the two-year period.
Long COVID is a chronic illness in which people who have caught COVID-19 have symptoms for a prolonged period of time.
It can affect almost every part of the body: extreme fatigue, muscle pain, loss of appetite, sleep problems and many other problems.
Louise Rowntree, senior researcher at the Doherty Institute, said the study was good news for people with long COVID because it showed their T cells were doing what they are supposed to do.
“It’s really positive news for someone with long COVID… the T cells are establishing themselves and being maintained,” she told the Australian Associated Press.
“The establishment and maintenance of these cells over this two-year period really provides that protection against subsequent infection, and their responses are also very good after their first vaccination.”
The research could help shape future treatments and vaccines for patients with long COVID.
“SARS-CoV-2 vaccines stimulate both antibody and T cell responses, so we have been tracking T cell responses, and it is certainly encouraging that we need to look at therapies and vaccines that will trigger both antibodies and T cells,” Rowntree said.
“These T cells can help protect when the virus mutates, so they can offer protection despite the virus changing over time.”
In June, the federal government invested $14.5 million in long COVID research to generate better evidence on effective management of the disease in the community.
The money was to be used to study how people experience long COVID, impacts on health systems, causes and national trials to try to speed up therapies.
