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In the ongoing debate over how long those who have recovered from COVID-19 infection could benefit from immunity against the novel coronavirus, a new study – which is considered the most comprehensive to date – offers an encouraging response.
In a study published Monday on the bioRxiv preprint server, researchers said that immunity to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes infection with COVID-19, could last for at least six months, or could be longer, maybe a matter of years.
The study, which has yet to be peer-reviewed or published in a scientific journal, was conducted by scientists from the La Jolla Institute of Immunology in California and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York.
Researchers analyzed various aspects of immunity, including antibodies, B cells, and two types of T cells. T cells respond to a foreign invader such as a virus, but are different from antibodies and are believed to provide immunity. against the coronavirus for a longer period of time.
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The study involved 185 American adults between the ages of 19 and 81. All had contracted the virus but had recovered, most suffering only from a mild illness. The researchers took blood samples from study participants, with some participants donating only one sample while others donated samples over a series of months, according to the study.
In the end, the researchers noted that the antibodies were “long lasting,” showing only modest drops after six to eight months. The antibody responses among the participants “spanned a range of 200 times,” the researchers said in the study.
T cell memory, meanwhile, “could reach a more stable plateau, or a slower decay phase, later than the first 6 months post-infection,” they wrote, while B cells increased. in number and “were more abundant at 6 months than at 6 months. 1 month, ”they said.
The findings bolster previous research on coronavirus immunity, including a study that showed immunity in COVID-19 patients recovered for at least three months. In addition, the researchers noted that the results are “also consistent with [the] recent detection of SARS-CoV T cells 17 years after initial infection. In other words, the results are consistent with a recent finding that survivors of the SARS outbreak in the early 2000s still had T cells against this coronavirus more than a decade after their recovery.
“This amount of memory would probably prevent the vast majority of people from being hospitalized with serious illness, serious illness, for many years,” said Shane Crotty, a virologist at the La Jolla Institute of Immunology who co-directed the study, New York Times. results.
The findings also prompted reactions from scientists outside of the study.
“This pre-print has not yet been peer reviewed, but brings some interesting news. The immune system is more than just antibodies in the blood, and these authors carefully measured different types of antibodies and different types of immune memory cells to see how long the immunity lasts. They identify particular types of memory B cells and memory T cells that are still present in good quantities six to eight months after infection, ”said Deborah Dunn-Walters, professor of immunology at the University of Surrey and president from the expert British Society for Immunology. COVID-19 Immunology Advisory Group, in a statement released by the UK’s Science Media Center.
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“In fact, the cells continued to grow for two or three months after the onset of symptoms. So even if the antibody levels in the blood go down, there are cells ready to make new ones if necessary, ”she continued.
“The paper confirms the importance of examining memory B cells and memory T cells to assess immunity and shows the best types of memory cells to look for and the best time to look for them. This gives us hope that immunity against SARS-CoV-2 could last for several years, ”added Dunn-Walters.
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