Influenza immunity lasts for a year and that of measles almost all life: what will happen to the coronavirus?

Against most viruses, people who get them get some kind of immunity, protection that can be verified with different tests that detect the presence of antibodies in the individual’s blood.

Before the influenza, immunity is lower because this virus mutates and changes some of its proteins and that is the reason why every year a new vaccine that protects against different strains. With the virus that causes measles, immunity is almost for life.

Today, in front of the new pandemic that the population is facing, the immunity that can be generated against this virus is a matter of debate and study. The reason? Being a new virus and not well known, it does not exist no information that is conclusive. Evidence missing. What is clear is that the more people achieve immunity, the better the virus can be controlled.

The Chilean Immunology Association (Asochin) warned this last week, through a letter in which it stated that, “to date, there is not enough scientific evidence to ensure that all patients recovered from Covid-19 are immune to infection by Sars-CoV-2“

The Immunologist at Clínica Las Condes, Jessica Salinas, indicates that when a person is infected with a new virus or bacteria, an innate immunity can be produced, a barrier against the pathogens with which one is born and if that type of immunity does not work, then comes the adaptive immunity.

In the latter, the different immune system cells begins to detect and destroy the stranger generating antibodies or immunoglobulins (iG). These are the ones that give the individual an immunological memory that in most cases protects them against new contact with the same pathogen.

The Sars-CoV-2, virus causing disease Covid-19It is “familiar” to other corona viruses that caused major outbreaks a few years ago: Sars-CoV- 1 that appeared in 2002 and MERS-CoV in 2012. This allows, according to specialists, to estimate that the new corona virus could, in theory, behave similarly.

“It is a new virus. The data we have on the first SARS-CoV-1, which emerged in 2002, show that people are left with immunity for a while. Some studies showed that people were immunized for about three months, other groups for a year or more. But it cannot be extrapolated, because they are different populations and also, because it was an epidemic that has already ended and no more cases have been registered, so we stopped being in contact with that virus, “he says. Ana María Gallardo, immunologist at Clínica Universidad de los Andes.

Today the specialist insists, “we don’t know if people are immunized or for how long. Neither if severe cases or mild cases are going to have more or less immunity ”.

A study published in January 2006, studied 98 patients who were infected with SARS and took antibody samples during 720 days for antibodies. “The persistence of detectable IgG (immunoglobulin G) antibodies and neutralizing viral antibodies for up to 720 days suggests that patients with SARS may be protected from recurrent SARS-CoV infection for up to 2 years,” the findings in this document detail.

Another investigation by the United States CDC, published in 2016, showed that six out of seven patients who were affected by an outbreak of this disease in Jordan in 2012, they maintained neutralizing antibodies for at least 34 months after the outbreak.

In the specific case of the virus that causes Covid-19, Salinas says that these antibodies or immunoglobulins are known to be generated but this immunity is not fully characterized. “We are not absolutely sure how many people make antibodies or how effective they are at inhibiting the virus. To say that immunity lasts for a year or months, we do not know. We can deduce if it will behave like the other coronaviruses that can last a year. Specifically, we don’t know, “says the immunologist at the Las Condes Clinic.