28th Feb, 2022
Banaras Hindu University
Discussion
Started 12th Mar, 2020
Does reducing COVID-19 viral load ameliorate severity of infection?
There is a concept of viral load.
Viral load has been considered in connection with HIV (Impact of viral load and the duration of primary infection on HIV transmission: systematic review and meta-analysis, 2014, Blaser et al.).
In another context, a 2010 article by several authors, DeVincenzo et al, Viral Load Drives Disease in Humans Experimentally Infected with Respiratory Syncytial Virus. Page 1312 of the report mentions “the potential clinical effectiveness derived by achieving a robust reduction in viral load through antiviral compounds."
Is it possible that how much virus there is affects how serious a disease results on being infected by COVID-19? If that were so, then in addition to isolating COVID-19 cases to inhibit transmission, it might be possible to inhibit severity of the disease by reducing viral load.
Is there research on this? If not, should there be?
Most recent answer
Also have a look at this:
Thanks!
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Popular replies (1)
The following study suggests that higher viral loads of COVID-19 do not necessarily lead to a more severe disease presentation.
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All replies (13)
10th Apr, 2020
Arturo Casadevall and Liise-anne Pirofski April 6, 2020 in Bloomberg: It’s Still Hard to Predict Who Will Die From Covid.
They outline 5 factors affecting severity of viral infection:
1) microbial dosage;
2) genetics of host;
3) viral entry route since susceptibility along route can vary;
4) strain of virus;
5) immune status of victim.
Reducing viral load is likely to be helpful. Do not ingest disinfectant to reduce viral load.
It has been suggested that ingestion of disinfectants may be beneficial to treat patients infected with SARS-CoV-2. DO NOT DO THIS. IT IS HARMFUL TO HUMAN HEALTH.
The above article may be of interest and provide some light relief.
11th May, 2020
Erin S. Bromage, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Biology at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. He posted a review that includes remarks on how increased exposure to virus particles increases risk. Well worth a look.
After posting this today, and the link, I noticed that Dr. Bromage gives some biographical information, and I am adding that link following the link to his article, so readers can better assess his post:
Link:
Bio link:
PS. Thanks to BP for bringing this article to my attention.
In my preprint paper I propose a systemic approach to calculate the effects of the circulated viral load in the epidemic dynamic evolution: "A systemic model for covid-19 ".
Experimental and preclinical observations made during prior attempts to develop vaccines against respiratory viruses suggest that some vaccine formulations may trigger undesirable responses. Some of these responses may be cell mediated while others may be triggered by antibodies.
1 Recommendation
11th Jul, 2020
07 July 2020
Pre-existing immunity to SARS-CoV-2: the knowns and unknowns
Alessandro Sette & Shane Crotty
Nature Reviews Immunology (2020)
From the article: Pre-existing T cell immunity to SARS-CoV-2 could be relevant because it could influence COVID-19 disease severity.
13th Sep, 2020
Facial Masking for Covid-19 — Potential for “Variolation” as We Await a Vaccine
by Monica Gandhi, M.D., M.P.H., and George W. Rutherford, M.D.
New England Journal of Medicine September 8, 2020
DOI: 10.1056/NEJMp2026913
From the article:
If the viral inoculum matters in determining the severity of SARS-CoV-2 infection, an additional hypothesized reason for wearing facial masks would be to reduce the viral inoculum to which the wearer is exposed and the subsequent clinical impact of the disease.
Basic principles of the probability of getting a disease and the severity of disease is that they are related to:
1. Dose of infection
2. Duration of exposure
3. Virulence/toxicity of agent
4.Susceptibility of host
These are expected to apply to the COVID-19 infection
2 Recommendations
1st Oct, 2020
Science magazine article:
One number could help reveal how infectious a COVID-19 patient is. Should test results include it? By Robert F. Service, Sep. 29, 2020
doi:10.1126/science.abf0366
From the article:
``... testing centers should report not just whether a person is positive, but also a number known as the cycle threshold (CT) value, which indicates how much virus an infected person harbors. Advocates point to new research indicating that CT values could help doctors flag patients at high risk for serious disease.‘’
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For the 4/3 laws, I refer to my projects on the 4/3 laws, and to a recent article Dark energy modeled by scaling
Preprint Dark energy modeled by scaling
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