If Youve Had Mono for Years and Is Inactive Virus Now

Medical professional wearing blue gloves takes COVID-19 test — Two small studies hint at an clan between the Epstein-Barr virus and long COVID. Mario Tama/Getty Images

More than 95% of good for you adults have a "latent" or fallow infection of the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), a blazon of herpes virus.
Illness and other stressors tin can reactivate the infection.
Two very pocket-sized recent studies accept suggested reasons to explore the relationship betwixt reactivation of the infection and the severity of both long COVID and COVID-19.
If more than extensive studies back up the role of EBV reactivation in long COVID, antiviral drugs that piece of work confronting herpes viruses may assistance preclude or treat the condition.

All data and statistics are based on publicly available data at the time of publication. Some information may be out of date. Visit our coronavirus hub and follow our live updates page for the nigh contempo data on the COVID-nineteen pandemic.

Around a third of people who take had COVID-19 feel symptoms lasting 12 weeks or more, including fatigue, "brain fog," and skin rashes, collectively known as long COVID.

Other symptoms include difficulty sleeping, joint and muscle pain, sore pharynx, headaches, and fever.

Individuals can develop long COVID regardless of whether their initial infection with SARS-CoV-2 — the virus that causes COVID-xix — was symptom-gratuitous, mild, or severe.

Two modest studies examined the office of the reactivation of some other virus in long COVID and more severe cases of COVID-19.

This other infection is EBV, a type of herpes virus that tin can cause glandular fever, which shares many symptoms with long COVID. At to the lowest degree 95% of adults have a "latent" or dormant EBV infection that causes no symptoms.

As below, the results of the two studies are express, but further investigation is warranted.

In the first study, doctors at Renmin Infirmary of Wuhan University in Wuhan, China, looked at 67 hospitalized people who had both confirmed COVID-19 and an EBV exam that their doctor ordered.

It is important to note that most of the patients initially eligible for the study did not undergo an ordered EBV examination, so it might be that there was something different about these 67 individuals that led to this recommended screening.

Even so, of those 67 people, around 55% were confirmed as having a reactivated EBV infection.

They plant that these patients were more likely to report having experienced fever, although neither grouping of patients had a measured elevated temperature in the infirmary. No other symptoms or vital signs differed betwixt the groups.

The authors did find a higher level of an inflammatory marking called CRP in the EBV group, but in both groups, the levels were within the normal good for you range. The cases were mostly balmy in both groups, and the EBV group did non demand more oxygen, increased access to ICU care, or longer recovery time.

Their written report appears in the journal Scientific Reports .

In the second modest study, researchers at universities in the United States and Turkey found that around a 3rd of 185 randomly surveyed COVID-xix patients had symptoms at least thirty days after testing positive.

When the scientists tested blood samples from some participants, they discovered that 66.7% (twenty out of xxx) of those with long COVID had a reactivated EBV infection.

By contrast, only 10% (two out of 20) of those who did not develop long COVID were positive for EBV reactivation.

All 185 people in this group tested positive for COVID-19 more than xc days before undergoing blood tests.

The scientists also analyzed the blood of a second group of xviii patients 21–xc days after testing positive for SARS-CoV-two. This revealed a similar ratio between those with long COVID who had a reactivated EBV infection and those who did not.

The researchers say this suggests that reactivation occurred presently after or concurrently with contraction of the SARS-CoV-2 infection.

They conclude that infection with SARS-CoV-ii may reactivate EBV, which in turn may crusade many long COVID symptoms.

This study, led by the research clemency Earth Organization, appears in the journal Pathogens .

The authors write:

"These findings suggest that many long COVID symptoms may not be a straight result of the SARS-CoV-ii virus only may be the result of COVID-19 inflammation-induced EBV reactivation."

"Over 95% of the globe'south population [has an infection] with EBV, and this remains as a largely asymptomatic infection for our lives," explained Lawrence Young, Ph.D., a virologist and professor of molecular oncology at the University of Warwick in the Britain, who was not involved in either written report.

"The virus continues to replicate at a low level in our mouths, noses, and throats, and maintains lifelong latent (dormant) infection in our B lymphocytes," he told Medical News Today.

"The hypothesis is that master infection with SARS-CoV-2 targets cells in our mouths and [throat] in which EBV is already nowadays and that this induces high levels of EBV replication," he added.

If future studies confirm the office of EBV reactivation in long COVID, he believes this will provide opportunities to better diagnosis of the condition.

He added that anti-herpesvirus drugs, such every bit ganciclovir, might be effective, though researchers have yet to investigate this.

All the same, because the study in Pathogens was retrospective, it could non dominion out the possibility that EBV reactivation occurred earlier SARS-CoV-ii infection.

It recruited patients online after they had recovered from the initial infection.

"We had no access to them prior to COVID-nineteen diagnosis or during their treatment for COVID-19. That was all in the hands of their personal physicians," said Prof. David Hurley, Ph.D., of the Higher of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Georgia, Athens, GA, ane of the authors of the report in Pathogens.

Prof. Young said that in almost people, EBV becomes fallow again following a reactivation. Nevertheless, in rare cases, it can crusade long-term wellness problems.

A stage i clinical trial of an EBV vaccine recently started to test its safety and immune responses in volunteers.

In theory, such a vaccine could protect people confronting severe illness and long-term health effects of EBV reactivation.

Prof. Hurley remains skeptical, notwithstanding. He told MNT that there are no effective vaccines against the closely related herpes simplex viruses one or ii, despite decades of enquiry.

"No vaccine for EBV is available," he said. "This is a sorry situation equally the worst long-term reactivation consequences of EBV are lymphomas, epithelial cancers in the nose and sinuses, and tumors found in muscle tissues."

This virus lies dormant in immune cells, nerve cells, and epithelial cells, just stressors can reactivate it. In rare cases, this can crusade cancer.

"The correct combination of stress and inflammation can promote cancer," said Prof. Hurley.

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