Immune Amnesia - interesting BBC article

Arthuritis
Arthuritis Member Posts: 452
in Living with arthritis
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20211112-the-people-with-immune-amnesia


While its of course essential to be vax’d against this nasty, it appears to have an interesting effect, in the highly unlikely event you catch it as an adult (unlikely as we are all immune to it).

However viruses with peculiar characteristics are often re-engineered and harnessed to be therapeutic.

The Astra vaccine is based on an re-engineered monkey adeno virus (no its not monkeypox), some gene engineering is even used to restore sight to hereditary blindness also uses a virus as transport …

So maybe something can be learned from the measles virus’ weird ability to give your immune system amnesia, and make it more specific to RA. 🤔

Comments

  • Rubikscubeboy
    Rubikscubeboy Member Posts: 44

    Great article thanks for sharing.

  • maudieB
    maudieB Member Posts: 6

    Really interesting article, thank you so much for posting this. I have never had measles and the vaccine wasn’t introduced until 1968 so I wouldn’t have been eligible which leaves me wondering, what if I caught it now 🤔. I remember my younger sister being seriously ill with measles, nursed at home with daily visits from GP. I was not allowed to go school for obvious reasons but I didn’t catch it. Natural immunity?

  • Arthuritis
    Arthuritis Member Posts: 452

    @maudieB Not natural immunity I am afraid, just super lucky, that there were enough immune people around you for you not to get infected.

    You can get yourself tested for immunity I think, and you can get an MMR vax as an adult (I did) because I had to travel to some grotty parts of the world for work.

    This is something you’d need to discuss with an immunologist & Rheumy to figure out what’s best for you, as the average gp today would not be familiar with such a rare situation.

  • frogmorton
    frogmorton Member Posts: 29,821

    Nice to see you@Arthuritis thanks for that very interesting

    Toni x

  • maudieB
    maudieB Member Posts: 6

    @Arthuritis - thanks for your very informative comment, I will definitely take this up with the Rheumy at my next appointment (whenever that will be). Must admit I was disappointed not to have natural immunity but delighted that I was super lucky 😃.

    Apologies for not replying sooner - sometimes life gets in the way of the more interesting things you want to do.

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