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Antibody levels against the coronavirus drop “quite quickly” after infection, British experts have found, according to the MTI.
Photo: Napi.hu / Dániel Szabó
Researchers from Imperial College London say the number of people who tested positive for antibodies fell by 26 percent in Britain between June and September, the BBC writes. Experts say that immunity appears to be weakened and there is a risk of reinfection with the virus.
In England, over 350,000 people have so far been tested for antibodies as part of the REACT-2 study. In the first test, which took place between the end of June and the beginning of July, antibodies were detected in about 60 out of every 1,000 people. However, in the second round of September, only 44 out of 1,000 people.
“Immunity weakens quite quickly, we are only three months after the first test and we have already shown a 26 percent reduction in antibodies,” said Professor Helen Ward, one of the study authors. Usually there was a greater decrease in those who survived Covid-19 asymptomatically, and for different age groups older than 65 years, the amount of antibodies decreased more.
The number of confirmed reinfections is extremely low. The researchers say this may be because immunity has only started to wane from the March to April peak.
Experts say that the second infection may be milder than the first, even if immunity is lowered, as the body needs to have an “immune memory” of the first encounter with the virus and know how to defend itself against it.
According to Professor Wendy Barclay, the rapid depletion of antibodies does not necessarily call into question the efficacy of candidate vaccines currently in clinical trials. “A good vaccine can be much more effective than innate immunity,” the expert noted.
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