研究发现了新冠感染如何启动体内严重炎症反应

Study reveals how Covid-19 infections can set off massive inflammation in the body

From the early days of the pandemic, doctors noticed that in severe cases of Covid-19 -- the ones that landed people in the hospital on ventilators with shredded lungs -- most of the internal wreckage wasn't being directly inflicted by the virus itself but by a blizzard of immune reactions triggered by the body to fight the infection.

从疫情早期，医生就注意到了：在那些需要住院上呼吸机的严重病例中，大部分内部损害不是病毒直接引起，而是身体对抗感染触发的免疫风暴引起

Researchers knew that these so-called cytokine storms were damaging, but they didn't know why the SARS-CoV-2 virus seemed to be so good at setting them off.

研究人员知道这种叫做炎症风暴的危害，但不知道新冠病毒为什么善于启动它。

A new study published Wednesday in the journal Nature is helping to explain how these immune overreactions happen to Covid-19 patients.

周三《自然》杂志出版的一项新研究帮助解释了这些过度免疫反应如何在新冠患者身上发生。

The study revealed that the SARS-CoV-2 virus can infect certain kinds of immune cells called monocytes and macrophages.

这个研究研究揭示：新冠病毒能够感染一些叫做单核细胞和巨噬细胞的免疫细胞

Front-line immune cells are infected

感染前线免疫细胞

Monocytes and macrophages are white blood cells, and they are frontline workers of the immune system. Their job is to circulate in the blood and tissues, to find and destroy pathogens. They do this by eating -- or really, surrounding and absorbing -- threats like viruses to keep them from being able to infect other cells.

单核细胞和巨噬细胞是白细胞，他们是免疫系统的一线员工。他们的工作是，在血液和组织中循环，来检测并消灭病原体。单核细胞和巨噬细胞通过吃掉像病毒一类的威胁，来工作，或者叫做包裹吸收，以使它们不能感染其他细胞

详见： https://edition.cnn.com/2022/04/06/health/covid-big-inflammation/index.html