How does the Coronavirus behave inside a patient? - The New Yorker
Bron: 26-03-2020: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/04/06/how-does-the-coronavirus-behave-inside-a-patient
By S. Mukherjee
Aim
Answer to the following questions:
- dose-response curve for the initial infection
- relationship between initial doses of the virus and severity of the disease
- are there quantitative measures of how the virus behaves in infected patients
Key findings
- For Covid-19, studies are ongoing to investigate the relationship between viral load and severity of the disease. The relationship between initial viral dose and severity remains to be seen
- As the virus continues to spread over the world → we will begin to find quantitative answers to these questions of how exposure intensity and subsequent viral loads relate to clinical course of covid-19
- To win the fight against covid-19, it’s essential to trace the course of virus as it moves through populations. But it’s equally essential to measure its course within a single patient
Summary
- Every virus has its own personality. The viral load - a continuum, not a binary value, helps to predict the nature, course and transmissibility of the disease
- The host immune response forms the other aspect of transmission and disease
- The relation between severity of the disease and amount of virus initially exposed to:
- Reports from China an Italy show that front-line health-care workers are at a great risk for serious illness despite their younger age
- A study from 2004 investigating the SARS-virus found that a higher initial load of the virus was correlated with a more severe respiratory illness → this pattern held true regardless of a patient’s age or underlying conditions
- The interaction between the virus and the immune system is a race in time → if you give the virus a head start with a large doses, you get higher viremia, more dissemination, higher infection and worse disease
- For Covid-19, studies are ongoing to investigate the relationship between viral load and severity of the disease. The relationship between initial viral dose and severity remains to be seen
- Quantitative measures to track Covid-19 in infected patients:
- A study from China reported that the viral loads in nasopharyngeal swabs from a group of patients with severe covid-19 were six times higher, on average, than the loads among patients with a mild form of the disease
- As the virus continues to spread over the world → we will begin to find quantitative answers to these questions of how exposure intensity and subsequent viral loads relate to clinical course of covid-19
- To win the fight against covid-19, it’s essential to trace the course of virus as it moves through populations. But it’s equally essential to measure its course within a single patient