A time bomb
Measles erases the immune system's memory of past infections
Marina Astvatsaturyan, Echo of Moscow
The rash characteristic of measles, inflammation of the mucous membranes of the oral cavity, upper respiratory tract and eyes are not the most harmful of the effects of the virus causing the disease, the real harm lies in an attack on the immune system. A review of recent data published by Science News is devoted to this phenomenon.
Measles imperceptibly erases the immune system's memory of infections carried by the body, and such "immune amnesia" makes people vulnerable to other dangerous viruses and bacteria. This effect, detected later, turns measles from a moderate infectious disease into a time bomb, says epidemiologist and pathologist Michael Mina from Harvard University.
Data on the type of immune cells most at risk when the body is infected with measles, as well as the duration of the malfunction of the immune system, were obtained in studies on laboratory animals, human tissue cultures, as well as during the examination of children before and after the disease, and they allow us to recreate a detailed picture of the destructive effect of the virus.
A new look at measles may contribute to people's understanding of measles vaccination as a broader than expected "safety umbrella", and "wherever you introduce this vaccination, you will always reduce child mortality. Always," says virologist Rick de Swart (Rik de Swart) from the Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands. By protecting the immune system from a viral attack, the vaccine creates a kind of protective halo from other pathogens.
After a person infected with measles begins to sneeze, the virus appears in the air and on surfaces, while maintaining its infectious danger for two hours. Once in the victim's body, it targets immune cells located in the mucous membrane of the nose and throat, the alveoli of the lungs or between the eyelid and the cornea of the eye. There is a protein on these immune cells called CD150. As experiments on animals have shown, thanks to him, the measles virus penetrates the body.
Starting to multiply rapidly in the immune cells of the mucous membranes, the virus then spreads to other places where they are located: bone marrow, thymus gland, spleen, amygdala and lymph nodes. According to de Swart, the measles virus prefers to infect the B and T cells of the immune system, which retain information about previously transmitted and neutralized infections, which normally allows the immune system to quickly recognize and eliminate a new threat. According to data published last year by the journal Nature Communications, after measles, the number of these cells decreases significantly.
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