COVID-19 leads to long-term changes in the immune system, study shows

MSN In a study recently published in the renowned journal “Allergy”, a MedUni Vienna research team shows that COVID-19 leads to considerable long-term changes in the immune system, even in mild cases. The findings could help to better understand the long-term consequences of an infection with SARS-CoV-2. As part of the study, the team led by first authors Bernhard Kratzer and Pia Gattinger and principal investigators Rudolf Valenta and Winfried Pickl (all from MedUni Vienna’s Center for Pathophysiology, Infectiology and Immunology) examined relevant immune parameters in 133 subjects who had recovered from COVID-19 and 98 subjects without the infection. The number and composition of various immune cells as well as cytokines and growth factors in the blood, which play a decisive role in the regulation of cell growth, were analysed in the recovered patients ten weeks and ten months after their initial infection . As no COVID-19 vaccines were available during the observational time period in 2020, all participants remained unvaccinated. This allowed the study authors to investigate the long-term effects of SARS-CoV-2 infection without the influence of vaccines.