By Dr Pa Sano Bojang Jr:
Covid-19 is a virus derived from bats (or other animals) which mean human's are not exposed to it to build immunity. Humans’ build immunity by getting expose to an antigen (things that are foreign to the body like virus). When they get exposed, the body create soldiers to fight the foreign material. Once the foreign materials is cleared, the body get rid of most of the soldiers but leave some incase this same virus attacked you again. The reason why you get sick the first time is because the body need time to design and build the soldiers to fight the virus. In this first infection, Its a tug of war between your body’s immune system and the virus. If your body wins, then you build immunity against this particular virus. Note, some time the thing (antigen) that your soldiers attack in/within the virus is common to many other viruses or is similar enough for your body to see it as what it sees before in the virus that made you sick. This way, if viruses similar to this one attack/infect you, your body will get rid of them easily.
The body uses the bone marrow, spleen and lymph nodes to design and build these soldiers for defense against infection/diseases. Once you have immunity, some of the soldiers circulate in your blood, others are stationed at lymph nodes to provide surveillance. Once they see the same virus the second time, they attack it immediately and also send messengers to tell the body to start producing soldiers en masse. Since your body already have the design template and factories to build the soldiers, it does not take time to fight and clear virus. Most of the time, you don't even realize it, your body swiftly get rid of the infection without you getting sick.
Because non-of us are previously exposed to Covid-19 virus, non has built immunity against it. So Why are the young and old vulnerable? This is because as you aged, your spleen which is one of sites the body uses to build the soldiers to fight infection atrophies (dies away). So, your ability to design and build soldiers to fight infection decrease with age.The young are vulnerable because they are not yet expose to a lot of foreign things and some of the other sites use to develop the soldiers are not yet fully functional. The reason why some of our not so young might have a fighting chance is because:
1) they might be exposed to a virus similar to this one.
2) the vaccinations they receive might be effective against this virus.
3) they are healthier and have a fully functional immune system.
Because as you aged, you also lose immunity you build as the soldiers, messengers and factories builds all decease in amount and effectiveness.
Current treatment includes drugs that target the republication of the virus (e,g. Chloroquine), the ACE2 receptor (losartan, candesartan, valsartan, and telmisartan,enalapril ) to prevent infection but ACE2 inhibitors have conflicting results. Alternatively patients are passively immunized by giving them soldiers (antibodies) developed from by a person that recovered from a Covid-19 infection. In this later case, the person can develop a hypersensitivity reaction and they do not build reservoirs to fight feature infection. Hence they can get reinfected.
This is the current situation, so all of us are vulnerable until a vaccine is developed and disseminated to the level of herd immunity (more people are immunize that they provide immununity for the few who are not immunized or cannot be immunized: the very young/old and the immune compromised). So for the sake of these vulnerable population, be responsible and follow the quarantined rules. Koto Ahmed Manjang is on top of this, his advise should be followed.
