Theories around COVID-19 and children’s immunity

“The theories which have come around are related to where actually the virus attaches or binds to the cell membrane receptors before the virus enters the cell before it can make exact copies of itself (replicate). The membrane receptors, the virus causing COVID-19 uses are found in the cells which line certain tissues such as lungs, kidneys, and liver.” 

By Tebby Otieno 

Cases of children testing positive of COVID-19 is evidence that even children are not safe from the Coronavirus, the question, however, is the level of their risk compared to that of adults. This also raises the question why any health damage caused by COVID-19 disease in the organs of children tends not to be as severe as those of adults.

While scientists are yet to come up with a vaccine to the Coronavirus that has led to the suspension of learning globally, there is not yet a scientific proof that children can actually be safe in schools because of their immune system being able to fight the virus.

Dr Ephantus Njagi, an Immunologist from the University of Nairobi, says it is not yet known why the risk of children getting COVID-19 is lower than that of adults, even though there are theories around the relationship between children’s immunity and that of adults which people sometimes mistake with that it is a hundred percent protection even though there is no scientific proof.

“The theories which have come around are related to where actually the virus attaches or binds to the cell membrane receptors before the virus enters the cell before it can make exact copies of itself (replicate). The membrane receptors, the virus causing COVID-19 uses are found in the cells which line certain tissues such as lungs, kidneys, and liver.  Research has shown that children have got very high levels of these receptors but instead of making them very highly susceptible to COVID-19 infection, they work on the reverse side and kind of protect the children. With this, they can carry the virus and not get diseases and if they get it, it is not as severe as found in adults” He notes that scientists do not know why this happens.        

The second theory   revolves around antiviral chemicals produced by the cells of our body and are involved in killing the virus, the so-called interferons. He notes that science has documented that children who produce high levels of interferons show better control COVID-19 infection, explaining why COVID-19 infection may be less severe than in adults. As we age, our interferon response is impaired explaining why adults will likely have severe COVID-19 infection.  

     “Generally, you have two arms of the immune system: the one which releases a chemical which we call anti-bodies and the other one which uses cells, the T-Cells, to destroy the virus. The T-Cells, they are trained in an organ we call the thymus. If you follow the progression of the thymus, your thymus is big when you are at puberty but after that, the thymus starts becoming smaller so, at around 60 years of age, there is calcification of the thymus. That means your immune system starts deteriorating so obviously, the capacity to fight infections is not going to behave like that of a young person.  This obviously can mean that children will be able to competently wade off COVID-19 infection easily and that adults will easily get the infection that will likely end up being more severe than that in children. The T-Cells also trigger the release of other chemicals called cytokines that have been associated with severe COVID-19 or even death. Very few children have been noted to have severe COVID-19 or death. Paradoxically, children infected with COVID-19 have been noted to have only a moderate increase of cytokine levels” Adds Dr Njagi.        

Dr Njagi further says that children having a lower risk to viral infections is not unique to COVID-19 pandemic itself, an example being some of the herpes viruses’ infections which have been known to be more serious in adults than in children, as well as Epstein Barr virus infection is mostly asymptomatic in very young children. 

Early this month during an interview with Fox News, US President Donald Trump falsely claimed children are almost immune from COVID-19, Facebook, and twitter accounts, however, removed the post for violation of misinformation policy. 

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, there have been rumours and misinformation around the disease, some of them including cure and its prevention. In March 2020, residents at the Kenyan Coastal region woke up each other at night to take black tea which was claimed to be the cure to Coronavirus. The message was alleged to have been delivered by a newborn baby who died minutes after passing the alleged message. There has also been misinformation about the use of ginger, garlic, and lemon as cure of the same.

Experts say weaponized information is misleading and prone to causing harm to its consumer. Managing director at PesaCheck, a company that does fact-checking says there are three types of information disorder which are misinformation, disinformation and misinformation.

     “Misinformation is unintentional mistakes such as inaccurate photo captions, dates, statistics, translations or when satire is taken seriously. Disinformation is fabricated or deliberately manipulated audio/visual content, intentionally created conspiracy theories or rumours. Malinformation, on the other hand, is a deliberate publication of private information for personal or corporate rather than public interest, such as revenge porn. Deliberate change of context, date or time of genuine content” Explained Erick Mugendi, who also emphasized on the need to use health experts to fact check any health misinformation to the public.