US, WASHINGTON (ORDO NEWS) — A study by microbiologists from Hong Kong University showed that the SARS-CoV-2 virus, responsible for the pandemic of Covid-19 disease, is able to produce several times more pathogenic microorganisms in the human lungs in a couple of days than SARS-CoV, the causative agent of the so-called atypical pneumonia of 2002-2003.
As an article in the journal Clinical Intectious Diseases says , an experiment that compared replication and cell tropism of SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 was performed ex vivo on lung tissue samples taken from six volunteers. It turned out that in 48 hours, the coronavirus of 2019 can multiply by about 100 times, while the maximum that SARS-CoV could reach is about 10-20 times.
“During the 48-hour interval, SARS-CoV-2 generated 3.20 times more viral particles than SARS-CoV. It is important to note that, despite more efficient replication, SARS-CoV-2 did not significantly induce type I, II, or III interferons in infected human lung tissues. In addition, while SARS-CoV enhanced the expression of 11 of 13 (84.62%) representative pro-inflammatory cytokines (cytokines – about 100 complex proteins involved in many immune and inflammatory processes in the human body. – Ed.) , SARS-CoV-2 activated only five (38.46%) of these 13 key inflammatory mediators, ”the authors write.
Thus, despite the aggressive and rapid ability to reproduce, SARS-CoV-2 caused slower immune and inflammatory reactions during the study: according to scientists, the mechanism that is responsible for the ability of the Covid-19 pathogen to penetrate cells so actively and at the same time in some cases, do not cause initial symptoms, not fully understood.
“The SARS-CoV-2 virus is like a ninja, breeding inside the body under conditions of low levels of interferons and an inflammatory reaction,” said Dr. Jasper Chan Fok-Wu, associate professor of medicine at the University of Hong Kong.
According to microbiologist Yuen Kwok-Jung, one of the authors of the study, since most people do not have immunity to SARS-CoV-2, the pandemic can continue even after the summer, so all governments should wait until quarantine and restrictive measures are lifted, and citizens need remember the importance of social distance and hygiene.
According to statistics from Johns Hopkins University, today there are over 1.86 million cases of SARS-CoV-2 infection in 185 countries: 438 thousand patients managed to defeat the disease, and more than 114 thousand died. In recent days, the United States came to the first place in the number of victims: 22,115 people died there.
Earlier, Chinese researchers explained the negative mechanism of SARS-CoV-2, and a large number of coronavirus victims in Italy were associated with the characteristics of the genes of its population.
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