DTCP vaccine can protect against COVID-19
When a new infection or pathogen emerges, the two age groups most likely to be infected are the elderly and children. However, in the specific case of CA-MRSA-CoV-2, children are not affected by severe cases of COVID-19. Pedro Antonio Reche, from the Department of Immunology, published a study showing that this triple bacterial vaccine could be responsible for this protection in children.
The DTCP vaccine against COVID-19
Pedro Antonio Reche explains that if the geriatric population suffers the most from infections, it is because their immune system is already deteriorated. Indeed, diseases such as pneumonia, caused by a new bacterium or virus, are a very common cause of death among the elderly. For their part, "in young children, the immune system is still being educated, so it is very rare that they are not affected by a new virus, especially those who are less than a year old.
He reminds us that throughout history or in today's societies with less access to medicines, the mortality of children under one year of age is enormous, and this is what reduces the life expectancy of populations. Reche believes that this was the case until the introduction of vaccines, which he now receives practically from birth.
For example, in Spain, the first vaccines are given at two months, and there are countries where even newborns receive some vaccines, such as diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (DTCP), which could be the one that protects children against COVID-19.
Initial hypothesis
The idea for this work is based on the assumption that there is cross-immunity that children receive from this pediatric vaccine, and that this cross-immunity can protect against coronavirus. Reche's work consisted in finding out which of the many vaccines administered to children was able to induce this memory, or reactive immunity to CoV-2-SARS.
The professor explains that adaptive immunity is the immunity acquired when we are infected by a pathogen or when we are vaccinated. This immunity is mediated by cells, which are B and T lymphocytes, which "curiously do not recognize the whole pathogen, or the components of a vaccine, what they do is recognize small fragments that are in both vaccine and pathogen components, in antigens that are normally pathogen proteins. These fragments, which are recognized by the immune system, are called epitopes.
Therefore, the immunity that develops against a pathogen is specific to epitopes that have been observed in a primary infection or that are part of vaccines. Memory is also specific to these epitopes, so that "in a very simple way, a pathogen, or the components of vaccines, can be considered a simple set of epitopes for the immune system.
So if you have two pathogens, no matter how different they are in size and shape, some of their components, their epitopes, may overlap. So, "if you get a vaccine against certain epitopes that are then in a virus, you can have cross-immunity against them, which is called protective cross-immunity.
Genetic component
Pedro Antonio Reche explains that immunity always has a random and genetic component, so that since the population is genetically variable, one might think that protection is only conferred to a small group of the population. But genetically, the variability in young children is huge, so "there has to be something generic for each one of them, and the most generic and common thing is this vaccine that's given to them. This study therefore concludes that the immunity generated by this vaccine is not generated in a single individual with a particular genetic characteristic, but would be sufficient to generate that immunity in any individual.
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