COVID-19 in children: Could pertussis vaccine play the protective role?
Med Hypotheses
; 145: 110305, 2020 Dec.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-798950
ABSTRACT
While COVID-19 continues to spread across the globe, diligent efforts are made to understand its attributes and dynamics to help develop treatment and prevention measures. The paradox pertaining to children being the least affected by severe illness poses exciting opportunities to investigate potential protective factors. In this paper, we propose that childhood vaccination against pertussis (whooping cough) might play a non-specific protective role against COVID-19 through heterologous adaptive responses in this young population. Pertussis is a vaccine-preventable infectious disease of the respiratory tract and it shares many similarities with COVID-19 including transmission and clinical features. Although pertussis is caused by a bacterium (Bordetella pertussis) while COVID-19 is a viral infection (SARS-CoV-2), previous data showed that cross-reactivity and heterologous adaptive responses can be seen with unrelated agents of highly divergent groups, such as between bacteria and viruses. While we build the arguments of this hypothesis on theoretical and previous empirical evidence, we also outline suggested lines of research from different fields to test its credibility. Besides, we highlight some concerns that may arise when attempting to consider such an approach as a potential public health preventive intervention against COVID-19.
Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Pertussis Vaccine
/
Pertussis Toxin
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Etiology study
/
Experimental Studies
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
/
Randomized controlled trials
Topics:
Vaccines
Limits:
Animals
/
Child
/
Humans
Language:
English
Journal:
Med Hypotheses
Year:
2020
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
J.mehy.2020.110305
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