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The immune protection against COVID-19, infection caused by SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, it has a duration of at least eight months. Therefore, it is significantly longer than previously suspected, due to studies that had found a rapid drop in the neutralizing antibodies. This is also great news from the perspective of vaccination campaignIt has already started in the United Kingdom and the United States and is about to begin also in the 27 countries of the European Union. In fact, the first vaccine administrations will begin on December 27 “BNT162b2”Developed by the pharmaceutical company Pfizer in collaboration with the biotechnology company BioNTech; in Italy The first person to be vaccinated outside of a clinical trial will be a nurse from the National Institute of Infectious Diseases (INMI) “Lazzaro Spallanzani” in Rome.
To determine that immunity against SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus infection lasts for at least eight months, an Australian research team led by scientists from the Central Clinical School of Monash University in Melbourne, who collaborated closely with colleagues from the Institute of Allergy, Asthma and Clinical Immunology – Alfred Health, the Burnet Institute’s Vaccine and Ingress Group, and the Peter Doherty Institute for Infections and Immunity, University of Melbourne. The scientists, coordinated by Professor Menno C. van Zelm, professor in the Department of Immunology and Pathology at the Australian University, reached their conclusions after having submitted the blood samples convalescent and recovered patients COVID-19.
The scientists took a total of 36 blood samples from 25 patients, looking not only for antibodies, but also for other cells related to it. immune response, or of “memory cells B“and of T lymphocytes. The tests were carried out from the fourth day after the appearance of the symptoms until 242. Although the count of immunoglobulins (or antibodies) began to decrease 20 days after the symptomatological manifestation, as was also detected by other investigations, the B cells continued to increase until day 150, remaining stable in the following months. Memory cells are so called because they “remember” them antigens with whom we have been in contact, specifically the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, and we are ready to create an army of neutralizing antibodies as soon as they arise again. In practice, they are essential sentinels to protect us from exposure to viruses and other pathogens. The B cells identified by Menno C. van Zelm and his colleagues were specific against nucleocapsid and the protein S OR Spike coronavirus, which uses the pathogen to bind to ACE-2 receiver of human cells, break the cell wall, insert theViral RNA and give life to the process replication, which underlies the infection (COVID-19).
“These findings are important because they show conclusively that patients infected with the COVID-19 virus actually maintain immunity against the virus and the disease,” the study’s lead author said in a news release. The limited duration of immunity was “a black cloud hovering over the potential protection that any COVID-19 vaccine would offer,” van Zelm added, but these results give hope that the vaccines “will provide long-term protection.” term. “According to a recent study by scientists at the La Jolla Institute of Immunology, it could last for years, if not decades. Details of Australian research” Rapid generation of durable B-cell memory for SARS-CoV-2 spike and nucleocapsid proteins in COVID-19 and convalescence “have been published in the authoritative scientific journal Science Immunology.
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