Raquel Almansa, research coordinator, and Jesús Bermejo, principal investigator.
Covid-19 It has been declared a pandemic for more than a year. Despite this, many things are still unknown about coronavirus. That is why, even today, this disease continues to focus most of the efforts of the scientific society. Thus, a recent joint study of the group Biomedical research in respiratory infections and Ibsal sepsis (Salamanca Institute for Biomedical Research) and Río Hortega University Hospital in Valladolid Keep that up uncontrolled viral replication is what causes inflammation in the viral process.
The research, which aims to understand the pathophysiology of severe diseases caused by this virus and was published in Lancet microbe, confirmed that the higher the viral load in plasma, “there were higher levels of markers of inflammation, endothelial and tissue damage, demonstrating that the virus plays a central role in the pathogenesis of the severe disease caused by Covid-19 “, according to sources from the Ministry of Health of Castilla y León to Medical writing.
That works against a widespread theory which shows that in the inflammatory phase of the disease, the virus would no longer have a relevant role. The research group’s findings indicate the opposite, as it is “uncontrolled viral replication that causes inflammation.”
Antiviral treatment
Based on these results, scientists suggest further research find effective antiviral treatments, “which should be combined with anti-inflammatory treatments which are currently administered to the most serious patients ”. Similarly, the researchers insist that measuring plasma viral load and the presence of the virus antigen in the blood “could be useful tools for detecting early patients who are about to get complicated.”
Likewise, the study points out that, as with HIV infection, the most serious patients had a higher plasma SARS-CoV-2 viral load, “which is surprising in the case of a respiratory virus”. The group verified that the patients who died had “the passage of the N virus antigen into their blood, which claims that these patients are not able to control its replication”.
Participants and involved in research
To obtain these results, the group Biomedical research in respiratory infections and sepsis at Ibsal and Río Hortega University Hospital, managed to participate in two multicenter projects (one funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Coronabio project and another funded by the Carlos III Institute of Health, the Ciberes-UCI-Covid project), coordinated by Dr. David Kelvin, Antoni Torres, Jose María Eiros and Jesus F Bermejo), to which was added a project funded by the Regional Health Management of César Aldecoa.
Within this project, ICUs of hospitals in Valladolid, Salamanca, Segovia, Palencia, Burgos and León “They provide a significant number of samples and information,” according to the sources. In addition, the group collaborates with the Salamanca Primary Research Unit (Apisal, led by Luis García Ortiz) and researchers from primary care areas in eastern and western Valladolid (led by Carmen García Casas) to identify chronic admission protection treatments and death of Covid -19.
Also from Emergency services from the Río Hortega University Hospital in Valladolid, the clinical severity scales are validated to evaluate the patient at the entrance door of the Hospital (Raúl López Izquierdo and collaborators) and from Pneumology (Félix del Campo) and Internal Medicine (Luis Inglada) are collaborating on a project to predict the risk of admission to the ICU.
This multidisciplinary work also has the collaboration of microbiologists from the Río Hortega and Clínico hospitals in Valladolid, León, Burgos and Príncipe de Asturias in Alcalá de Henares, intensivists from the Gregorio Marañón Hospital in Madrid and Vall d’Hebron in Barcelona, Pulmonologists at La Fe Hospital in Valencia, Clinic in Barcelona, Biomedical Research Institute in Lleida, Internists at Infanta Leonor Hospital in Madrid, Emergency Doctors at Gregorio Marañón, Biochemistry Services at the same hospital, as well as Analysis Service Cardiovascular Surgery Clinic of the Clinical Hospital of Valladolid and, finally, of the Viral Infection and Immunity Unit of the National Center of Microbiology. The coordination of patient recruitment was led by Raquel Almansa, from the BioSepsis group, with Luis Tamayo and Elena Busdamente coordinating the work in the ICU.
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