Immunocompromise

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:00 — 1.4MB)

Subscribe: RSS

Anchor lead: People whose immune systems aren’t completely functional may have more Covid-19 worries, Elizabeth Tracey reports

People who’ve gotten organ transplants take medicines to keep their immune systems from rejecting the organ, and this unfortunately also dampens their response to Covid vaccinations, a study by Dorry Segev, a transplant surgeon at Johns Hopkins and colleagues has shown. Segev says there may be additional risks.

Segev: It is certainly possible that people who are immunocompromised who get the virus will shed it longer after their symptoms have resolved, than immunocompetent people. This is obviously dangerous in terms of the people they encounter, dangerous in terms of development of variants, and reemphasizes the fact that we need to protect immunosuppressed people as much as we possibly can, from getting exposed to this virus and getting infected with it.  :28

Segev notes that anyone taking steroids or other medicines that affect the immune response may also be at risk. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.