Question

During the COVID-19 outbreak doctors took samples of patients’ blood and analyzed them to determine how the immune system responds to the infection. The data below is separated into two groups: patients who had mild signs and symptoms and those who had severe illness.

Table 1: Proportions of leukocytes in blood from COVID-19 infected patients.

Leukocyte	Normal percentage	Mild	Severe
Neutrophil	40-75%	67.5%	77.6%
Lymphocytes (T cells + B cells)	20-50%	21.4%	14.1%
Monocytes	3.0-10%	8.4%	6.6%
Eosinophils	0.4-8.0%	0.2%	0.0%
Basophils	0.0-1.0%	0.2%	0.1%
Helper T cells	27-51%	39.8%	37.2%
B cells	5.0-18%	18.5%	21.8%

Table 2: Blood protein levels from COVID-19 infected patients.

Protein	Normal range	Mild	Severe
C-reactive protein, mg/L	0.0-1.0	33.2	57.9
Tumor necrosis factor-α, pg/mL	0.0-8.1	8.4	8.7
Interleukin-6, pg/mL	0.0-7.0	13.3	25.2

Protein	Normal range	Mild	Severe
C-reactive protein, mg/L	0.0-1.0	33.2	57.9
Tumor necrosis factor-α, pg/mL	0.0-8.1	8.4	8.7
Interleukin-6, pg/mL	0.0-7.0	13.3	25.2

Propose an alternate treatment to convalescent plasma therapy for severe COVID-19 patients based on the information gathered in table 1 and table 2

Answer 1

In the blood cells, there is a drastic lymphocytes reduction and also the C-reactive protein and IL-6 proteins are being over expressed in severe patients. The alternative treatment to convalescent plasma therapy will be to aim the lymphocyte generation in the body by decreasing the IL 6 and CRP protein which are phagocytosis the cells and thereby reducing the immune system. This can be done by adding inhibitors of the CRP and IL-6 until there levels come back to normal and by doing this, the lymphocyte count will increase thereby fighting off the corona virus. Once the secondary immune system i.e. mediated by the lymphocytes is activated, the body's immune system can fight off the corona virus.

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