n
Covid 19 shots may also protect against 21 other viruses – some of which are deadly – a US study suggests.
Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York tested blood samples from 85 US citizens and found that those with Covid antibodies also had protective proteins against other coronaviruses — a family of viruses that cause respiratory and intestinal disease — including potentially fatal SARS and MERS.
SARS is a respiratory virus that began spreading in China in 2002, killing about one in ten of those infected. MERS is also a respiratory syndrome first discovered in Saudi Arabia in 2012 that kills about one in three people infected.
Study participants had received two or three doses of the Moderna or Pfizer jabs, had been infected with Covid, or both. Their blood was tested for antibodies against 21 different coronaviruses of varying severity.
Antibodies are proteins produced by the immune system in response to unwanted substances entering the body. They bind to the substance, like a virus, to destroy it.
Covid 19 shots may also protect against 21 other viruses – some of which are deadly – a US study suggests
The results were compared to the blood samples of 15 people taken in the two years before the pandemic.
The pre-pandemic blood samples were found to contain antibodies to two viruses that cause the common cold, as well as a virus that affects cows. However, the post-pandemic blood samples were found to contain protective proteins against the majority of the 21 coronaviruses.
The study authors said they had discovered a level of immunity strong enough to prevent serious illness and death, but not infection.
While it’s not entirely clear why this happens, it has been suggested that coronaviruses share certain genetic material that makes it easier for the immune system to notice and attack them.
Just under 80 per cent of adults in England have Covid-19 antibodies in their blood, either as a result of vaccination or infection, according to the latest data from the Office For National Statistics.
The new study, which has yet to be reviewed by other scientists, concludes: ‘It is entirely possible that the world’s population, which has been hyperimmunized against SARS-CoV-2 (the strain of the coronavirus that causes Covid-19) through infection and vaccination , has now built up more resistance to the many members of the coronavirus family.”