Face Mask – a Transitory Substitute to COVID-19 Vaccine?

Universal facial masking may show an effective possibility for inducing variolation against the SARS-CoV-2 virus until we anticipate the COVID-19 vaccine, as suggested by a hypothesis published in The New England Journal of Medicine. With the continued spread of COVID-19, one of the proven strategies to reduce the severity of the infection is the proper use of a facial mask.

Studies conducted during the SARS pandemic in 2003, have highlighted the effectiveness of public masking and pandemic control. This might be evidenced by the factor that wearing a mask with proper filtering capacity blocks heavy viral load from entering the nose and mouth, thereby reducing the transmission rates and severity of the infection. The above practice also holds for the SARS-CoV-2 virus as per various research evidence to date.

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‘Population-wide face mask exposes an individual to a lower rate of SARS-CoV-2 infection. This might help with smaller dose of exposure to the virus to induce variolation against COVID-19 and reduce its severity, until the arrival of the vaccine.’

Variolation is the method of inducing immunity in a susceptible individual by exposing them to a milder form of infection. Thiswas the technique adopted against smallpox (Variola) until the launch of the Variola vaccine.

The present hypothesis validated that high doses of viral exposure disrupts the immunity of a person and increases the severity of the disease and can even lead to death. Thus, by minimizing the viral exposure, this mechanism might be down-regulated which would result in an asymptomatic (milder) infection rate.

The theory was limited by insufficient studies on the strength and durability of SARS-CoV-2 – specific T-cell immunity among symptomatic and asymptomatic infections along with low COVID-19 transmission rates among asymptomatic infections.

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Face masks can provide a form of variolation that would generate immunity and slow the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Decreasing the transmission rates and severity of the disease helps in combating the pandemic – components that are significantly manifested by the population-wide use of facial mask – concluded the authors, from the Centre for AIDS Research, Division of HIV, Infectious Diseases, and Global Medicine, Department of Medicine (M.G.), and the Division of Infectious Disease and Global Epidemiology, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics (G.W.R.), University of California.

Source-Medindia

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