What are T-Cells?
If you’re one of those people following all the news on COVID-19 looking for a wee bit of hope (be careful, so-called “doomscrolling” isn’t good for your mental health) then you may well be worried about recent reports that antibodies to COVID-19 drop off rapidly after 2 or 3 months.
However, it’s not quite as bad as that, and the key to the situation may in fact be T-cells.
What are T-cells?
Our adaptive immune system uses two methods to attack infection.
Antibodies grab the virus before it can infect a cell and “kill” it. T-cells are the other prong. They identify infected cells and destroy them, preventing the virus from spreading through your system.
Like antibodies, T-cells are adaptive; they have to be programmed to recognize specific signs of infection. However, T-cell immunity seems to stick around for longer than antibodies.
There are two kinds of T-cells. Helper T-cells identify the virus, and killer T-cells destroy the cells. Helper T-cells are kind of like the dispatcher. They identify the virus and then tell the immune system to make more of the right kind of T-cells and antibodies.
Infected cells are identified by viral antigens that are left on the surface when the virus invades a cell.