Study Says COVID-19 Antibodies Persist For At Least Nine Months After Infection, Even In Asymptomatic Patients

A study carried out in an Italian city, published on Monday in Nature, have shown that COVID-19 antibody level remains elevated for at least nine months after infection with SARS-CoV-2, whether or not symptomatic.

Researchers from the University of Padua and Imperial College London tested more than 85% of that Italian city’s 3,000 residents for the coronavirus in February and March 2020 and retested them for antibodies in May and November of the same year.

The research team found that 98.8% of people infected in February and March showed detectable levels of antibodies in November and that there was no difference between those who had suffered symptoms of COVID-19 and those who had been asymptomatic.

Antibody levels were detected using three tests to detect different types of antibodies that respond to different parts of the virus.

The results showed that although all types of antibodies showed some decline between May and November, although the rate of deterioration was different depending on the test. They also found cases of increased antibody levels in some people, suggesting potential reinfection with the virus, boosting the immune system.

“We found no evidence that antibody levels between symptomatic and asymptomatic infections differ significantly, suggesting that the strength of the immune response does not depend on the symptoms and severity of the infection.Says lead author of the study Ilaria Dorigatti of the Center for Global Infectious Disease Analysis and the Abdul Latif Jameel Institute for Emergency and Disease Analytics at Imperial College.

However, he added that the study shows that “antibody levels vary, sometimes noticeably ”, depending on the test used. “This implies that caution should be exercised when comparing estimates of infection levels in a population obtained from different parts of the world, with different tests at different times,” he said.

He also noted that “it is clear that the pandemic is not over, neither in Italy nor abroad. Going forward, it is of fundamental importance to continue administering the first and second doses of the vaccine as well as to strengthen surveillance systems such as contact tracing.

(With information from EFE)

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