WEDNESDAY, Nov. 6, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- A simple nasal swab might help doctors predict the severity of a person’s COVID infection, a new study suggests. More than 70% of people with mild or moderate COVID develop certain antibodies in their nasal cavities that are linked to fewer symptoms, better immune response and faster recovery, researchers reported Nov.
6 in the journal Science Translational Medicine . These are autoantibodies, or antibodies that attack the body and typically are associated with autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease and psoriasis, researchers said. “Generally, autoantibodies are associated with pathology and a negative prognosis, causing increased inflammation that would indicate more severe disease,” noted senior researcher Eliver Ghosn , a faculty member with the Emory University’s Lowance Center for Human Immunology and Emory Vaccine Center.
Previous studies of COVID patients have suggested that autoantibodies in the blood indicate a more life-threatening illness. But those studies looked at the blood rather than in the nose, which is the actual site of infection, researchers said. “What’s interesting about our findings is that with COVID-19, it’s the opposite.
The nasal autoantibodies showed up soon after infection, targeting an important inflammatory molecule produced by the patient’s cells,” Gohsn said in an Emory news release. “These autoantibodies latched on to the molecule, likely to pr.