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Paris: People may be able to fight reinfection for at least six months after recovering from COVID-19 thanks to cells that can “remember” the virus, according to research published Monday.
Researchers from the United States and Switzerland studied dozens of people who had recovered from COVID-19 and found that while their antibodies may fade over time, they maintained levels of specific memory B cells.
These cells can remember the pathogen and, if faced with reinfection, can cause the immune system to restart the production of antibodies that fight viruses.
“Memory responses are responsible for protection against reinfection and are essential for effective vaccination,” concluded the study published in the journal Nature.
“The observation that memory B-cell responses do not decline after 6.2 months, but continue to evolve, strongly suggests that people who are infected with SARS-CoV-2 could mount a rapid and effective response to the virus by expose yourself again. “
The authors evaluated 87 people with a confirmed diagnosis of COVID-19 just over a month and six months after infection.
Although they found that the activity of the virus’s neutralizing antibodies decreased over time, the number of memory B cells remained unchanged.
The researchers said their study indicated that the response of memory B cells against coronavirus evolves during the six months after infection in the presence of viral proteins remaining in the body, allowing the cells to produce more powerful antibodies.
How long people can fight against reinfection by the new coronavirus and what immune process is involved are key to predicting the dynamics of the pandemic.
Previous research has raised concern by showing that neutralizing antibodies can decline rapidly after infection with SARS-CoV-2.
But more recent studies have highlighted the role of other parts of the immune system in long-term immunity.
An article published in the journal Science this month suggested that almost every major part of the immune system that can learn to recognize and repel a new pathogen could continue to respond to the virus for at least eight months.
This included specific memory B cells with protein spikes, which the researchers found actually increased in the blood six months after infection.
The document was based on analysis of blood samples from 188 COVID-19 patients.
