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In reply to the discussion: CDC study shows three-fourths of people infected in Massachusetts covid-19 outbreak were vaccinated [View all]wnylib
(21,968 posts)Right after I posted about dormant viruses, NPR's Science Friday program had a guest virologist discussing viruses that stay in the body. She is Diane Griffin of John Hopkins.
She did not mention chicken pox, but she talked about measles, HIV, and herpes.
HIV and herpes have DNA so they incorporate themselves into the nucleus of cells and that's how they linger in the body, staying active, or capable of becoming activated.
Measles is an RNA virus so it can't get into the cell nucleus. But virologists are now discovering that the RNA viruses, like measles, can stay in the body of people who had measles as children all the way into their senior years. It is no longer active or infectious. She speculated that the continued presence of the measles RNA in lymph (part of the immune system) stimulates the immune system just enough to maintain immunity.
So she thinks that the SARS CoV-2 virus, which is also RNA, might linger in the body, too, stimulating the immune system enough to continue inflammation and other symptoms of long covid. The inflammation, headaches, congestion, and other illness symptoms that we get when sick are caused by the immune system's response to invasion. So an RNA virus that stays in the body even after it is no longer active and infectious could still provoke the immune system into action.
But my question then is why doesn't that happen with the measles RNA virus, too, when it lingers in the body for years? Also, if Ms. Griffin believes that the lingering RNA measles virus causes immunity, why wouldn't the lingering SARS COV-2 virus do the same? People can get reinfected with SARS COV-2.