The study suggests macrophages – cells typically charged with protecting the lung – can be infected by SARS-CoV-2 and can contribute to spreading the infection through the lung. The targets are the immune cells: macrophages and T cells. Drug trial to treat newly discovered targets in COVID-19 pneumoniaĪs a result of the detailed analysis, researchers identified critical targets to treat severe SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia and lessen its damage. This is the first study in which scientists analyzed immune cells from the lungs of COVID-19 pneumonia patients in a systematic manner and compared them to cells from patients with pneumonia from other viruses or bacteria. The severe complications of COVID-19 compared with other pneumonias might be related to the long course of disease rather than more severe disease, the study authors said. Instead of rapidly infecting large regions of the lung, the virus causing COVID-19 sets up shop in multiple small areas of the lung. It then hijacks the lungs' own immune cells and uses them to spread across the lung over a period of many days or even weeks, like multiple wildfires spreading across a forest. As the infection slowly moves across the lung, it leaves damage in its wake and continuously fuels the fever, low blood pressure and damage to the kidneys, brain, heart and other organs in patients with COVID-19. ![]() ![]() ![]() Bacteria or viruses like influenza that cause pneumonia can spread across large regions of the lung within hours. In the modern intensive care unit, these bacteria or viruses are usually controlled either by antibiotics or by the body’s immune system within the first few days of the illness.īut in a study published in Nature on January 11, investigators at Northwestern Medicine show COVID-19 pneumonia is different.
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