A new study explores the tricks employed by the coronavirus to travel inside the human body and multiply. A team of researchers has discovered that the virus can create a shield made from glycans, a type of sugar, to enter human cells without arising suspicions from the immune system, a report says.
This trait has been encountered, among other viral infections. Still, the glycan shield is considerably weaker in the case of Sars-CoV-2, and the vulnerability could be exploited for the release of an effective vaccine.
Several spikes present across the virus are coated in glycans, and they are for attachment as the human cells will detect the sugar and believe that there are no risks while viral proteins are being injected.
Due to the increased transmission potential from one person to another, the glycan layer is not as thick as it could be, since the additional shielding isn’t needed at this point.
Stay at home and protect yourself from the novel coronavirus
Laboratories across all over the world are working on potential treatments and vaccines that could be approved and distributed as fast as possible, as thousands of new coronavirus cases are diagnosed each day.
While some countries have introduced strict curfews and banned gatherings, this is not the case for many others as thousands of people participate at festivals and willingly expose themselves to the risk of getting the virus from infected participants.
Public unrest is also growing in select countries were nation-wide quarantine has been imposed as some people argue that without the ability to go to work, they will run out of money. Protests against the quarantine have already taken place in France, and more needs to be done to pacify disgruntled people.
Social distancing and self-isolation remain two of the essential tools that can be used to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus. While masks do not offer protection in the case of healthy people, they can limit the spread of the virus from people who have contracted the infection.
