How can routine Measles and Tetanus vaccination prevent Covid-19? Study explains

The Measles-Mumps-Rubella (MMR) and Tetanus-Diphtheria-Pertussis (Tdap) vaccines, which are given to children, are likely to give increased protection against the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), a new study has claimed. It also said that these vaccines have been associated with reduction in severity of the disease.

While the MMR vaccine is given during early childhood, and Tdap preventive is administered every 10 years.

The study has been carried out by the researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital in the US. They said that these vaccines are designed to induce a strong and long-lasting immune response through the creation of memory T-cells and B-cells.

These cells are capable of responding to protein targets called antigens present in other disease causing microbes, including the viral antigens in Sars-CoV-2, the researchers further said.

The study has been published in the journal Med.

The researchers conducted laboratory-based analyses using sensitive, new techniques to detect and characterise T-cell responses to antigens.

They applied these techniques to measure the response of T-cells isolated from the blood of Covid-19 convalescent patients and those vaccinated against the disease to antigens from Sars-CoV-2 and the MMR and Tdap vaccines.

"The researchers observed an association where individuals with Covid-19 who had either MMR or Tdap vaccines had a much lower frequency of going to the intensive care unit or dying," said study co-author Andrew Lichtman.

Those who had previously been vaccinated for MMR had a 38 per cent decrease in hospitalisation and a 32 per cent decrease in ICU admission or death, while patients previously vaccinated for Tdap had 23 per cent and 20 per cent decreased rates, according to the study.