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Most people infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, will carry antibodies for at least a year, according to a recent peer-reviewed study.
The European Journal of Immunology on September 24 accepted a study by scientists at the Finnish Institute of Health and Welfare, who studied 1,292 subjects eight months after infection for the presence of antibodies.
Their results included 96% of subjects still carrying neutralizing antibodies and 66% with the nucleoprotein IgG antibody.
After randomly selecting 367 subjects from the original cohort who were not yet vaccinated one year after infection, the scientists found that 89% of the subjects still had neutralizing antibodies and 36% with the IgG antibody.
People with severe SARS-CoV-2 infection had higher antibody levels, ranging from two to seven times more antibodies than those with mild infections at least 13 months after contracting the disease .
While the antibodies provide long-lasting protection against the original SARS-CoV-2 virus, their neutralizing efficiency against the Alpha, Beta, and Delta variants has declined over time.
Neutralizing antibodies were “only slightly reduced” in the Alpha variant and “significantly reduced” in the Beta variant. However, “over 80% of subjects who recovered from severe infection” with SARS-CoV-2 still had neutralizing antibodies against the Delta variant one year after becoming infected.
Nature Medicine published a study in May that found “the level of neutralization is highly predictive of immune protection” against SARS-CoV-2.
A preliminary study, which has yet to be peer reviewed, found that antibodies declined 10-fold just seven months after subjects received the second dose of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.
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