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A group of Australian scientists has discovered how the immune system fights COVID-19, information that could be of vital importance in the race to find a vaccine against the new coronavirus, the pandemic of which has already spread to 162 countries.

In an article published this Wednesday in the scientific journal Nature Medicine , a team of researchers from the Peter Doherty Institute of Infection and Immunity, at the University of Melbourne, state that the reaction of the immune system against COVID-19 is similar to what it has against the flu.

"Our study provides novel contributions to understanding the amplitude and kinetics of immune system responses during a non-severe case of COVID-19," the document states.

The scientists studied blood samples from a 47-year-old coronavirus-infected patient who had traveled from the Chinese city from Wuhan, the origin of the pandemic, to Australia, who had no previous pathologies and who was placed in isolation, where she managed to overcome the illness 13 days after contracting it.

Since the new coronavirus has recently made an appearance, experts still have little information about its behavior and how the human body reacts to it, but the Australian team's discovery could serve to greatly facilitate how to combat it.

"This information will allow us to evaluate any candidate to be vaccinated, since in an ideal world the vaccine should mimic our body's immune response ," Katherine Kedzierska, head of the research team, told local Australian media ABC.

Kedzierska added that the cells they have seen "emerge" just before the patient's recovery are the same ones that fight the flu.

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  • Australia
  • Wuhan
  • Coronavirus
  • Covid 19

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