Research from a Chinese university suggests nearly everyone who contracts coronavirus develops antibodies to the disease.
Scientists at Chongqing Medical University found that 95 per cent of 285 patients developed both types of the immune cells that fight the virus.
Dr Francis Collins on the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Director’s blog said the recent study “brings much-needed clarity, along with renewed enthusiasm, to efforts to develop and implement widescale antibody testing for SARS-CoV-2.”
Antibodies are blood proteins produced by the immune system to fight foreign invaders like viruses, and may help to ward off future attacks by those same invaders.
In their study of blood drawn from 285 people hospitalised with severe COVID-19, the researchers found that all had developed SARS-CoV-2 specific antibodies within two to three weeks of their first symptoms.
They determined that nearly all of the 285 patients studied produced a type of antibody called IgM, which is the first antibody that the body makes when fighting an infection.
Though only about 40 percent produced IgM in the first week after onset of COVID-19, that number increased steadily to almost 95 percent two weeks later. All of these patients also produced a type of antibody called IgG. While IgG often appears a little later after acute infection, it has the potential to confer sustained immunity.
In a follow-up study, the researchers collected blood from another 69 patients.
Within 20 days, all but two patients – who were related, a mother and daughter – produced antibodies.
“There’s still a way to go with both virus and antibody testing for COVID-19,” wrote Dr Collins. “But as this study and others begin to piece together the complex puzzle of antibody-mediated immunity, it will be possible to learn more about the human body’s response to SARS-CoV-2 and home in on our goal of achieving safe, effective, and sustained protection against this devastating disease.”
Leave a Comment