Dengue antibodies may be making Thais immune to Covid-19

[webfact]

Dengue antibodies may be making Thais immune to Covid-19

By The Nation

 

 

Thailand may be luckier than other countries as a study from Brazil has revealed that former dengue patients have a low chance of dying from Covid-19.

 

Dr Manoon Leechawengwongs cited studies published on medRxiv revealing that dengue antibodies may boost immunity against Covid-19.

 

He said Thailand has more than 100,000 dengue patients every year, and many Thais take the BCG vaccine for tuberculosis to avoid dengue infections.

 

This, he said, may explain why there are far fewer Covid-19 cases here than in other countries.

 

However, Manoon said, people still need to follow preventive measures, including wearing face masks, washing hands and maintaining social distancing to prevent a second wave of infections.

 

Source: https://www.nationthailand.com/news/30395254

 

-- © Copyright The Nation Thailand 2020-09-28

 

- Whatever you're going through, the Samaritans are here for you

- Follow Thaivisa on LINE for breaking COVID-19 updates

[86Tiger]

Wow!

 

The vaccine already exists in little ol' Thailand.  this will be a game changer.

[Jingthing]

27 minutes ago, 86Tiger said:

Wow!

 

The vaccine already exists in little ol' Thailand.  this will be a game changer.

He said may.

[Sheryl]

"many Thais take the BCG vaccine for tuberculosis to avoid dengue infections. "

 

is very incorrect and misleading.

 

BCG is given to all Thais at birth but does not prevent dengue.

 

There is a dengue vaccine which uses a modified BCG vaccine with additional components added but it is not part of the Thai vaccination program and very, very few Thais have received it.

 

If in fact prior dengue infection reduces mortality from COVID that would of course be good news but a single correlation in one country is far short of proving that.

[Kwasaki]

I've got the worst sttain of dengue fever he doesn't go into to much except may. 

[tifino]

Fake news is Allowed, when it suits 'the Institution'...

[Sheryl]

The study in question has not been peer reviewed.

 

Prior exposure to dengue clearly is not reducing the rate of COVID infections in India.

 

Basically what the study did was look for "correlations" between higher and lower rates of COVID in different parts of Brazil and other factors and one of the things they found was an inverse relationship to the prevalence of antibodies related to Dengue. Correlation is not causation.

[Dumbastheycome]

1 minute ago, tifino said:

Fake news is Allowed, when it suits 'the Institution'...

Why  "fake" ?

It is a speculation which may  have been  better to not release until some better evidence one way or the other is produced. 

It would be a safe bet that all sorts of experimental applications of existing  substances are being investigated around the  world.

[richard_smith237]

Which countries have the highest incidence of Dengue Fever ???? - 

 

Answer, Brazil, Venezuela and Columbia 

 

http://www.denguevirusnet.com/epidemiology.html

 

Thailand, Philippines and Indonesia is also up there on the ‘high list’

 

 

Venezuela has relatively low Covid-19 number, but the country is on its knees in the mids of a socialist meltdown - I wouldn’t believe any figures which originate from there. 

 

 

I suspect Thailand isn’t getting increased cases now because because it already had cases at the end of 2019 and beginning of 2020 - a combination of herd immunity and no domestic testing of the general population may be the answer.

 

Rather than testing of illogical miracle answers such as 'Dengue Immunity' why not investigate the possibility that Covid-19 already swept the nation and people are carrying some form of immunity. 

 

Public records (Thailand ministry of public health) no longer carry information on the increases in Viral Pneumonia back in Jan, Feb and March... very strange. 

 

Edited September 28, 2020 by richard_smith237

[Moonlover]

9 minutes ago, richard_smith237 said:

Which countries have the highest incidence of Dengue Fever ???? - 

 

Answer, Brazil, Venezuela and Columbia 

 

http://www.denguevirusnet.com/epidemiology.html

 

Thailand, Philippines and Indonesia is also up there on the ‘high list’

 

 

Venezuela has relatively low Covid-19 number, but the country is on its knees in the mids of a socialist meltdown - I wouldn’t believe any figures which originate from there. 

 

 

I suspect Thailand isn’t getting increased cases now because because it already had cases at the end of 2019 and beginning of 2020 - a combination of herd immunity and no domestic testing of the general population may be the answer.

 

Rather than testing of illogical miracle answers such as 'Dengue Immunity' why not investigate the possibility that Covid-19 already swept the nation and people are carrying some form of immunity. 

 

Public records (Thailand ministry of public health) no longer carry information on the increases in Viral Pneumonia back in Jan, Feb and March... very strange. 

 

I certainly agree with you to a degree. I'm also a supporter of the 'early herd immunity' theory. Have been for a long time. It would be reassuring if they were to take a sizable sampling of Covid 19 anti body tests from people who have not knowingly had the disease. That would be interesting.

[DrTuner]

And I suppose the Thais that return from abroad and test positive have never had dengue or been vaccinated. Only the true local, government fearing good citizens have this superior immune system. Not the dirty traitors that dared to go out.

[TooBigToFit]

I've had dengue twice. The first time I had it I think took aspirin and that made it worse fast. Americans tended to take Aspirin rather than other stuff from my experience, but my US experience ended 25 years ago. It seemed like Thailand made a big push to get rid of aspirin from pharmacies about three or four years ago but even before then aspirin was never popular like in the US and Europe. Thais use paracetamol and in fact that's seems to be the better drug to use in environments with dengue. Aspirin supposedly spreads the dengue throughout the body accelerating the infection. I wonder what those South American nations use as a common headache/pain medicine and what is popular in the Philippines. (It would be nice to see all the differences in drug use around the world on some maps.) Anyways, I wonder if the everyday drugs people use in Thailand like paracetamol make a difference and in contrast whether aspirin use in the US has any influence on this virus spreading quicker there.

[richard_smith237]

2 hours ago, Moonlover said:

I certainly agree with you to a degree. I'm also a supporter of the 'early herd immunity' theory. Have been for a long time. It would be reassuring if they were to take a sizable sampling of Covid 19 anti body tests from people who have not knowingly had the disease. That would be interesting.

 

It would be very interesting. However, I suspect the reliability of the antibody testing to be one of the primary factors in not relying on that data.

Another facet is that no government wants to find out the ‘continued lock down decision’ was flawed, if a large proportion of the population are found to have had Covid-19 and its proven Covid-19 has swept the nation the potential criticism of the policies is then backed up by proof rather than a theory. 

 

I think its something we need to know. But a government could be damaged by such results. 

 

[DrTuner]

1 hour ago, richard_smith237 said:

However, I suspect the reliability of the antibody testing to be one of the primary factors in not relying on that data.

It's likely antibodies are long gone from the Nov-Feb infections. It's been over half a year.

[Donekys]

So many experts...i can't imagine why tvf hasn't solved the world's problems yet

[Lacessit]

1 hour ago, TooBigToFit said:

I've had dengue twice. The first time I had it I think took aspirin and that made it worse fast. Americans tended to take Aspirin rather than other stuff from my experience, but my US experience ended 25 years ago. It seemed like Thailand made a big push to get rid of aspirin from pharmacies about three or four years ago but even before then aspirin was never popular like in the US and Europe. Thais use paracetamol and in fact that's seems to be the better drug to use in environments with dengue. Aspirin supposedly spreads the dengue throughout the body accelerating the infection. I wonder what those South American nations use as a common headache/pain medicine and what is popular in the Philippines. (It would be nice to see all the differences in drug use around the world on some maps.) Anyways, I wonder if the everyday drugs people use in Thailand like paracetamol make a difference and in contrast whether aspirin use in the US has any influence on this virus spreading quicker there.

Paracetamol is actually quite dangerous if consuming alcohol as well, high liver toxicity.

https://www.nps.org.au/australian-prescriber/articles/alcohol-and-paracetamol

[sammieuk1]

 Here was me thinking it was all down to uncle and fudging the figures ????

[ukrules]

1 hour ago, DrTuner said:

It's likely antibodies are long gone from the Nov-Feb infections. It's been over half a year.

I'm sure you know where antibodies come from, those little antibody factories will remain.

[ukrules]

Dengue is reportedly asymptomatic in some 80% of cases, you only hear about the people who get it bad.

 

Sounds familiar......

[herfiehandbag]

1 hour ago, Donekys said:

So many experts...i can't imagine why tvf hasn't solved the world's problems yet

It has - but nobody will listen!

[onebir]

An earlier study showing negative correlation between BCG and Covid-19 mortality:

 

https://www.pnas.org/content/117/30/17720

 

(There also seem to be some clinical trials underway, notably in health care workers, so we should soon get a better idea of whether this is a real protective effect.)

Edited September 28, 2020 by onebir

[Wiggy]

6 hours ago, Kwasaki said:

I've got the worst sttain of dengue fever he doesn't go into to much except may. 

But he said it’s only for Thais. 

[DrTuner]

52 minutes ago, ukrules said:

I'm sure you know where antibodies come from, those little antibody factories will remain.

Yup, B-cells. But they don't produce antibodies all the time, they'll kickstart into action when they recognize a pathogen ( or a T-cell does and kicks their cell butts ), the immunity system memory in action. Hence the infection must be somewhat recent. I haven't updated my info in months now, but I remember it was something like 3-4 months predicted period for the antibodies to remain elevated.

 

EDIT: here's a bit more recent article:

https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/studies-report-rapid-loss-of-covid-19-antibodies-67650

 

Quote

One of the studies found that 10 percent of nearly 1,500 COVID-positive patients registered undetectable antibody levels within weeks of first showing symptoms, while the other of 74 patients found they typically lost their antibodies two to three months after recovering from the infection, especially among those who tested positive but were asymptomatic.

Quote

In the second study, published June 18 in Nature Medicine, researchers compared the immune responses of 37 asymptomatic but positive patients to an equal number with severe symptoms living in the Wanzhou District in China. They found that asymptomatic individuals reacted less strongly to infection, with 40 percent having undetectable levels of protective antibodies in the two to three months after the infection compared to 13 percent of the symptomatic patients. 

So, even if Thais were to do widespread antibody testing now, it wouldn't tell much about the situation ten months ago. The evidence has evaporated.

Edited September 28, 2020 by DrTuner

[DrTuner]

55 minutes ago, ukrules said:

Dengue is reportedly asymptomatic in some 80% of cases, you only hear about the people who get it bad.

 

Sounds familiar......

I think it's quite common for a lot of diseases. Some are pre-disposed to illness caused by a virus or a bacteria, while in the others the immune system handles it without a fuss.

Edited September 28, 2020 by DrTuner

[geriatrickid]

It was an unexpected finding and the takeaway isn't about dengue per se.  The authors emphasized the potential  “immunological cross-reactivity” between DENV serotypes (dengue antibodies) and SARS-CoV-2.   The benefit may have been from a prior dengue infection or a dengue vaccine. The takeaway is that other vaccines might be useful until such time as a  SARS Cov-2 specific vaccine was available. It was also suggested that the yellow fever  and zika virus vaccines might offer a similar benefit.

 

My interpretation: Vaccines can and do help. They can sometimes offer unexpected benefits.

More study is required.

 

[Flying Saucage]

9 minutes ago, DrTuner said:

So, even if Thais were to do widespread antibody testing now, it wouldn't tell much about the situation ten months ago. The evidence has evaporated.

So, someone should tell them that they slowly can start testing now. The coast is clear! 

[ehs818]

I've no idea if there is protection from having had Dengue Fever or not. But I have a suspicion that it's a social distancing advantage that happens in Thailand that has resulted in less cases being spread. Here's my reasoning:

Thais Wai when they greet others. They do not generally shake hands, hug, or kiss each other on the cheek. This alone is one of the most effective ways to prevent infection.

[Emdog]

I've had dengue twice also. No picnic.

The idea dengue antibodies could give protection against covid does seem a tad "out there"

Watched a good docu from Timeline series (on youtube) about 1665 plague outbreak in London. Cures or preventions included getting Syphilis would somehow block plague and smoking tobacco. Maybe the "smoking after sex" tradition goes back to then

[mommysboy]

I think it's far more likely that previous exposure to a similar coronavirus is the reason behind Thailand's minimal outbreak.  And of course it did act swiftly to eradicate the virus just as an outbreak was looming. Actually, I believe the solution to covid19 lays not in a vaccine but in being infected with a milder coronavirus or possibly even the common cold.

[Henricus]

13 hours ago, Donekys said:

So many experts...i can't imagine why tvf hasn't solved the world's problems yet

Where trying 55555