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Compiled by Zakiyah Ebrahim
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Health24
19 Nov 2020, 04:45
- Understanding immunity to SARS-CoV-2 infection is essential to understanding how it contributes to protection against re-infection.
- Previous studies indicated that immunity is short-lived, but recent studies suggest otherwise.
- One of these studies shows that immunity can last for years, possibly decades.
Scientists have been quick to understand immunity against reinfection with SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that can lead to Covid-19).
It is not yet entirely clear how long contracting the virus confers immunity, and early studies suggest a period of a few months, which therefore means that it can only provide temporary protection against reinfection.
One of these studies, for example, found that antibody levels “dropped quite rapidly” after infection in the British population, suggesting a risk of multiple infections, Health24 reported.
However, more recent studies indicate that immunity may last longer.
Some protection against reinfection
According to a study published in the renowned magazine Natural medicine, people who have recovered from Covid-19 have powerful and protective killer immune cells, even when the antibodies are not detectable.
This, the authors wrote, “represents the main determinants of immune protection at both the individual and population levels.”
In this study, a research team from the University of Freiburg Medical Center in Germany found that after recovery from SARS-CoV-2 infection, immune cells are formed that remain in the body and could mediate a rapid immune response in case of reinfection.
“These so-called memory T cells after SARS-CoV-2 infection look like a real flu,” said study co-author Dr. Maike Hofmann, a scientist in the Department of Medicine II at the Medical Center. University of Freiburg.
“Therefore, we are confident that the majority of people who have survived SARS-CoV-2 infection have some protection against reinfection by SARS-CoV-2,” he added.
Co-author of the study, Dr. Christoph Neumann-Haefelin, director of the Gerok Liver Center at the University Hospital Freiburg, also expressed optimism about their results, suggesting that immunity against the new coronavirus can be achieved after an infection and that “in Similarly, the vaccines currently being tested in trials could provide significant protection against SARS-CoV-2. “
What another recent study shows
Another study, perhaps more hopeful, shows that immunity could last for years, possibly even decades.
In this study, the team of researchers from the La Jolla Institute of Immunology in California and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York investigated multiple compartments of circulating immune memory to SARS-CoV-2 in 185 cases of Covid-19. . , including 41 cases more than six months after infection.
They found that eight months after infection, most of the people who recovered still had enough immune cells to fight the virus and prevent illness.
In other words, there was a very slow rate of decline in these cells, showing that they persist in the body for a long time.
Although the research, published online on the bioRxiv preprint server, has not been peer-reviewed or published in a scientific journal, the New York Times refers to it as “the most comprehensive and far-reaching study on immune memory to coronavirus to date.”
“That amount of memory would probably keep the vast majority of people from getting hospitalized illnesses, serious illnesses, for many years,” said Shane Crotty, virologist at the La Jolla Institute of Immunology, with Dr. Deepta Bhattacharya, an immunologist at the University. . of Arizona, believing that it is not an unreasonable prediction to think that these components of immune memory would last for years.
the Times It also points to another recent study that showed that survivors of SARS, also caused by a coronavirus, still carry important immune cells 17 years after being infected. The results of this study have led scientists to hope that studying antibodies can be very beneficial in an effort to develop drugs to prevent or treat Covid-19.
While scientists continue in the global race to develop a Covid-19 vaccine to help control the pandemic, these findings that immunity to the virus might not be so short-lived after all are likely a relief to experts.
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