Scientists investigate people who are super immune to COVID-19: they live with the virus without becoming infected

The advance of infections by omicron and the other variants of COVID-19 in Peru increases every day, according to official data from the Ministry of Health (Minsa). Only in the last 24 hours of this Wednesday, some 23,762 people became infected; adding a total of 3,070,357 since the start of the pandemic.

Due to cases of transmission, the total sum of people who died from coronavirus it reached 204,769. To stop this terrible situation, the regions of the whole country are in the process of vaccination that has already reached children from 5 to 11 years old.

However, despite the high rates of this disease that can be fatal, there is a sector of the world population that resists contagion and seems to be completely immune to the virus; even living with infected people.

As El Clarín points out, these people are super resistant even if they have not received any doses of the vaccines that fight against the coronavirus.

In this context, it should be noted that the symptoms caused by the omicron variant are very similar to those of a common flu: fever, headache and sore throat, cough and nasal congestion.

This group of super resistants has been called the ‘COVID-19 Terminator‘. This term is used to name those people whose immune system resists being infected.

The word Terminator It is quite well known from the 1984 film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger; the same one who fights in a war between humanity and indestructible machines.

Researchers are currently discovering the genetic characteristics of this group of super resistant people. Scientists at the Rockefeller University of New York (USA) try to decipher the cellular mechanism that protects them in order to replicate it in antidotes.

The first hypothesis of the researchers is that the way in which the virus enters the cells of these people “either they are not expressed or they are expressed in a different way” compared to the rest of the population that does manage to be infected.

The cells of the ‘COVID-19 Terminator‘ They build an indestructible wall against the virus that makes them immune.

“Knowing these genetic determinants could help explain not only why some patients COVID-19 develop serious illness, but also to propose possible courses of action against the virus”, explained Dr. Jesús Troya, from the Infanta Sofía Hospital, in Spain.

With more precise and effective data, the researchers hope to advance the development of treatments against the virus, since “Finding those changes in the DNA in genes that facilitate the entry of the virus into the cells or the first phases of viral multiplication will allow the design of specific pharmacological or other treatments that manage to close the door of our cells to the viral invader”, assured the head of the Neurometabolic Diseases Group of the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (Idibell), Aurora Pujol.

This study, published in the journal Nature last October, expects to have new conclusions within six to eight months.