No Thanks for the Memory
Summary
The innate immune system is the first responder, it operates to inhibit infection using generalised mechanisms such as inflammation, with little specific knowledge of precisely what it is dealing with. Late last year a small study of a family with COVID-19 symptomatic parents found children had generated antibodies to a disease that had never been virologically detectable under repeated testing. However, a vastly reduced number of naive immune cells and a propensity to tackle pathogens using remembered strategies may prove disadvantageous when facing the wrong kind of novel infection. This seems to underscore an observation playing out globally even now: if a complacent adult immune system must learn a hard lesson, we do far better when taught by a non-pathogenic vaccine rather than a full-on viral assault. A review of the proposed mechanisms underlying the age- related difference in severity of SARS- CoV-2 infections,Arch Dis Child 2020;0:1-11. doi:10.1136/archdischild-2020-320338 British Society for Immunology (2020) The ageing immune system and COVID-19, Rapid Review, 10 November 2020 Palmer, S., et al (2021) COVID-19 hospitalisation rates rise exponentially with age, inversely proportional to thymic T-cell production, Journal of The Royal Society Interface doi: 10.1098/rsif.2020.0982 Chung, A.W., et al (2021) Systems serology detects functionally distinct coronavirus antibody features in children and elderly, Nature Communications, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-22236-7 American Society for Clinical Investigation (2021) Natural mucosal barriers and COVID-19 in children, JCI Insight, 10 May 2021 doi:10.1172/jci.insight.148694
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