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That Cytokine Storm
By Nana Dadzie Ghansah
NOTE: The following is a rather simple discussion of a very, very, very complex topic!
It has long been believed that death from infections due to pathogens like SARS-CoV-2, or even malaria or the flu, is not really from the virulence of the pathogen per se but is often the result of the body mounting an over-the-top innate immune reaction to the invasion of the pathogen.
The human body defends itself from pathogens through its immune system. The immune system has two parts. The part that is responsible for pathogens that the body has never seen before and the part that remembers old pathogens and creates antibodies to fight them the next time they show up.
The part responsible for new pathogens is the innate system while the one that remembers is the adaptive system. Once a new pathogen is engaged by the innate system, it activates the adaptive system so it can start making antibodies.
In some people, the response of the innate system can be so strong that it leads to injury and even death to those human hosts.
To help explain it, let’s do an anlaogy:
Imagine you have big mansion in a neighborhood that has deteriorated over the years. You love the place so you do not want to move. To protect yourself from intruders and burglars, you get a pretty elaborate security system. The system includes sensors all around your property’s perimeter, lights and even several troops of armed guards and dogs. You even have guards in watch-post surveying the neighborhood and caretakers to clean up.
The setup is such that if the guards in the watch-post miss an intruder and he gets on the property, he trips a sensor that causes a red light turn on. The red light tells the guards closest to the sensor that there is an intruder on the property. They unleash the dogs and start shooting. Cameras in the interim have captured several images of the intruder for storage. If the dogs take out the intruder or the intruder escapes, the light goes off and the guards stop shooting towards where the intruder was sighted.
The shooting and barking are the signals the caretakers need. They show up after everything has died down to get rid of any debris, secure anything left behind by the intruder or…
