Why does Flu get worse as we age - and is it the same for COVID?

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2021-01-27 05:00

Australia; VIC

Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay

Elderly people who contract the Flu seem to produce fewer immune 'emergency' signals from infected cells, and therefore a slower immune response to infection than younger people, according to Aussie researchers. The team also found that regardless of age, people infected with COVID-19 similarly did not produce the emergency signals needed for an early immune response to the virus. The study indicates that as we get older, we start to lose immune T-cells which are specific for combatting the flu virus. They also suggest that because COVID-19 is a new virus and our cells have not encountered it before, there are no specific immune cells to fight it.

Journal/
conference: Clinical & Translational Immunology

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: The University of Melbourne, Monash University, Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity

Funder: This work was supported by National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (LMW). KK is supported by Australian NHMRC Investigator Fellowship (#1173871) and the University of Melbourne Dame Kate Campbell Fellowship. THON is supported by NHMRC EL1 Fellowship (#1194036). This study was also supported by the Medical Research Future Fund (#2005544). The Melbourne WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza is supported by the Australian Government Department of Health.

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