Measles hits kids' disease defences

• Autores: Debora MacKenzie
• Localización: New scientist, ISSN 0262-4079, Nº. 3021, 2015, pág. 14
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • The measles virus kills white blood cells that have a "memory" of past infections and so give humans immunity to them. Those cells were assumed to bounce back because new ones appear a week or two after someone recovers. However, recent work in monkeys shows that these new memory cells only remember measles itself; the monkeys lost cells that recognize other infections, if they get similar "immune amnesia," childhood deaths from infectious diseases should rise and fall depending on how many children had measles recently, and how long the effect lasts, says Michael Mina of Emory University in Atlanta GA.