Even after two years, individuals with long COVID display resilient immune responses, offering hope for long-term protection against reinfection. Study: SARS-CoV-2-specific CD8 + T cells from people with long COVID establish and maintain effector phenotype and key TCR signatures over 2 years . Image Credit: p.
ill.i / Shutterstock In a recent study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , researchers defined severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)-specific B- and T-cell responses in individuals with long COVID. Long COVID is an ongoing global health burden; it impacts multiple organ systems, with affected people reporting diverse symptoms that persist from 12 weeks to two years or longer after SARS-CoV-2 infection.
Fatigue, myalgia, impaired concentration, and chest pain are the most common symptoms. Long COVID may be attributed to multiple non-mutually exclusive mechanisms that cumulatively account for the large spectrum of symptoms, including immune perturbations, viral persistence, and inflammatory pathways. SARS-CoV-2-specific cluster of differentiation 8 + (CD8 + ) and CD4 + T cells have a major role in viral clearance and recovery.
However, T cell recruitment and persistence in long COVID are less clear. Long COVID can last weeks, months, or even years, affecting multiple organ systems with a wide range of symptoms, including fatigue, cognitive dysfunction, and chest pain. Further, the introduction of vaccines compli.