Coronavirus: Thread

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When will the whole TOP-SECRET truth about COVID
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Viral RNA Can Persist For 2 Years After COVID-19: Preprint Study

https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/viral-rna-can-persist-for-2-years-after-covid-19-preprint-study-5493620
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10418298/

A new study may explain why some people who get COVID-19 never return
to normal and instead experience new medical conditions like
cardiovascular disease, clotting dysfunction, activation of latent
viruses, diabetes mellitus, or what’s known as “long COVID” after
SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Roughly 15 percent of people who get COVID-19 experience long COVID, a
term used to define the long-term physical, cognitive, and mental
health impairments that persist from weeks to months after a person
recovers from COVID-19.

In a recent preprint study published on medRxiv, researchers conducted
the first positron emission tomography (PET) imaging study of T cell
activation in individuals who previously recovered from COVID-19 and
found that SARS-CoV-2 infection may result in persistent T cell
activation in a variety of body tissues for years following initial
symptoms. Even in clinically mild cases of COVID-19, this phenomenon
could explain the systemic changes observed in the immune system and
in those with long COVID symptoms.

To carry out the study, researchers conducted whole-body PET scans of
24 participants who were previously infected with SARS-CoV-2 and
recovered from acute infection at time points ranging from 27 to 910
days following COVID-19 symptom onset.

A PET scan is an imaging test that uses a radioactive drug called a
tracer to assess the metabolic or biochemical function of tissues and
organs and can reveal both normal and abnormal metabolic activity. The
tracer is usually injected into the hand or vein in the arm and
collects in areas of the body with higher levels of metabolic or
biochemical activity, which can reveal the location of the disease.

Using a novel radiopharmaceutical agent that detects specific
molecules associated with a type of white blood cell called T
lymphocytes, researchers found uptake of the tracer was significantly
higher in post-acute COVID-19 participants compared to pre-pandemic
controls in the brain stem, spinal cord, bone marrow, nasopharyngeal
and hilar lymphoid tissue, cardiopulmonary tissues, and gut wall.
Among males and females, male participants tended to have higher
uptake in the pharyngeal tonsils, rectal wall, and hilar lymphoid
tissue compared to female participants.

Researchers specifically identified cellular SARS-CoV-2 RNA in the gut
tissue of all participants with long COVID symptoms who underwent
biopsy—in the absence of reinfection—ranging from 158 to 676 days
following initial COVID-19 illness, suggesting that tissue viral
persistence could be associated with long-term immunological concerns.
Although the uptake of the tracer in some tissues appeared to decline
with time, the levels still remained elevated compared to the control
group of healthy pre-pandemic volunteers.

"These data significantly extend prior observations of a durable and
dysfunctional cellular immune response to SARS-CoV-2 and suggest that
SARS-CoV-2 infection could result in a new immunologic steady state in
the years following COVID-19," the researchers wrote.

To determine the association between T cell activation and long COVID
symptoms, researchers compared post-acute COVID-19 participants with
and without long COVID symptoms at the time of PET imaging. Those with
long COVID symptoms reported a median of 5.5 symptoms at the time of
imaging. Findings showed a “modestly higher uptake” of the agent in
the spinal cord, hilar lymph nodes, and colon/rectal wall in those
with long COVID symptoms.

In participants with long COVID who reported five or more symptoms at
the time of imaging, researchers observed higher levels of
inflammatory markers, “including proteins involved in immune
responses, chemokine signaling, inflammation responses, and nervous
system development.” Compared to both pre-pandemic controls and those
participants who had COVID-19 and completely recovered, people with
long COVID showed higher T cell activation in the spinal cord and gut
wall.

Although the researchers attribute their findings to SARS-CoV-2
infection, all but one participant had received at least one COVID-19
vaccination prior to PET imaging. To minimize the impact of
vaccination on T cell activation, PET imaging was performed more than
60 days from any vaccine dose except in one participant who received a
booster vaccine dose six days prior to imaging. Except for that one
participant, people who had received a COVID-19 vaccine within four
weeks of imaging were excluded. Researchers also grouped participants
by receipt of a COVID-19 dose greater than or less than 180 days prior
to PET imaging—although vaccinated participants would have undoubtedly
been included in both groups.

The researchers said their study had several other limitations,
including small sample size, limited correlative studies, evolving
variants, rapid and inconsistent rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, which
required them to shift their imaging protocols, using pre-pandemic
individuals as controls, and the extreme difficulty of finding people
who had never been infected with SARS-CoV-2.

"In summary, our results provide provocative evidence of long-term
immune system activation in several specific tissues following
SARS-CoV-2 infection, including in those experiencing Long COVID
symptoms," the researchers concluded. "We identified that SARS-CoV-2
persistence is one potential driver of this ongoing activated immune
state, and we show that SARS-CoV-2 RNA may persist in gut tissue for
nearly 2 years after the initial infection."