Negative! Their tests have always been negative, never vaccinated, never infected by Covid-19! These «Novid» represent a mystery for scientists who, for some, have pursued the nasal mucosa track. They have discovered how these people avoid getting sick and have traced a detailed chronology of their immune responses. People who have never been infected by the SARS-CoV-2 virus have an immune response, previously unknown, that protects them, according to a study whose results have just been published in the journal Nature. They are called the Novid. These are individuals who, since the beginning of the appearance of SARS-CoV-2 and despite the successive waves of the epidemic, have never caught Covid-19. Scientists seem to have uncovered their secret.
Researchers have indeed discovered that people who always manage to avoid the disease possess unique immune responses that help them avoid prolonged infection. The study’s results suggest «an immune response localized in the nasal mucosa that allows individuals to identify the virus, prevent it from anchoring, and causing an infection,» detailed the Imperial College London, which co-led this work, in a statement.
«Responses immune «never seen»! To reach these conclusions, scientists conducted a human challenge study – candidates volunteered to be infected with the virus. Thirty-six healthy adults with no history of Covid-19 infection or Covid-19 vaccination were administered the virus through the nose. The research team conducted detailed monitoring of blood and nasal mucosa before, during, and after infection. The entire infection process until its total disappearance was scrutinized. In total, sequencing of over 600,000 cells was performed!
In addition to this discovery, the study establishes an extremely comprehensive timeline of immune system responses during an infection. Scientists have thus discovered the involvement of a gene in the prevention of prolonged infection. A track towards treatments that can be generalized to other future pandemics.
For Professor Christopher Chiu, from the department of infectious diseases at Imperial College London, «not only will these results have a significant impact on the development of next-generation interventions against SARS-CoV-2, but they should also be generalizable to other future epidemics and pandemics.» As for Dr. Marko Likolic, from University College London: «These results shed new light on the crucial early events that allow the virus to establish itself or to be eliminated quickly before symptoms develop. We now have a much better understanding of the entire immune response, which could serve as a basis for the development of potential treatments and vaccines.»
The study’s findings open up new possibilities for understanding immune responses to infections and developing targeted treatments against not only Covid-19 but also potential future pandemics. The detailed analysis of the immune responses of individuals who have never been infected by SARS-CoV-2 provides valuable insights that could lead to breakthroughs in medical research and the development of more effective vaccines and treatments in the future. This research highlights the importance of studying the immune system’s role in protecting against infectious diseases and the potential for personalized medicine approaches in the field of immunology.