Having been diagnosed with coronavirus half a year ago, a Vilnius resident took a blood test this week – the results were surprising

Symptoms of the infection occurred to the man in mid-March when he left a meeting with friends. Then the temperature rose slightly, to 37 degrees, with an unusually painful headache.

However, at the time, at the beginning of the pandemic, the amount of research was very small, so no research was done for Gytis. The hotline specialists only said that in case of deterioration of health, a man should consult a family doctor.

Wife Ernest felt bad in the middle of the week. He had a fever for about a week, a headache, a stuffy nose, a cough, and a slight sense of smell. But a week later, in Gytis’s words, the two were already living a normal quarantined life.

Towards the beginning of April he received a call from a friend he had been with at the bar a month ago. It turns out that the friend did and confirmed the test – the test is positive.

Gytis called the hotline again and told him about his friend’s illness. The interviewee underwent a test that showed Gytis had a COVID-19 infection.

After the test, the husband and wife waited 2 weeks for isolation, followed by two more tests for infection. On April 20, an exam showed that the virus was no longer in the body.

A couple of months ago, Gytis ran a rapid coronavirus test, which showed that there were still antibodies in the body. And this week, the interviewee also performed a laboratory test, which also shows the presence of antibodies in the body.

“Half a year has passed and I did an antibody test. I came up with the study just for fun, I wanted to see if the antibodies were gone or not. You can see right now that they haven’t left, but I’ll still be driving to the Blood Center on Friday. They took my plasma and they know the amount of antibodies I had then and I will compare what is left now, “said the man.

Gytis conducted the test at a private clinic in Vilnius.

“It is a simple blood test. I gave blood yesterday, got the result at lunch today. When I took blood plasma to treat other people with antibodies, they told me that the amount was small enough that it was not very possible to treat something with that plasma. My form of illness was mild, so probably few were formed, “said the interlocutor.

On Thursday, Gytis did another quick test: he tested positive again. This means that a rapid test also found antibodies in the man’s body.

Even in the asymptomatic form, patients have antibodies.

Aurelija Žvirblienė, Senior Researcher at the Vilnius University Life Sciences Center (VU) and professor at the Vilnius University Medical Faculty, told Delfi in more detail what is already known about anti-virus antibodies. coronavirus.

“Antibodies are actually formed, a lot of work has been published about it. We did the research ourselves and we saw it. Even when there is an asymptomatic infection, the vast majority of people actually have those antibodies. The question always comes up, how long do they last?

For some people, their levels may drop after 4-5 months and the test may not show up. If a person has gotten sicker, they generally have more antibodies and they don’t decrease as much, “said prof. A. Žvirblienė.

At the moment, according to the professor, there are preparations for another antibody test in Nemenčinė; it was done a little earlier, and the researchers noted that practically everyone who was sick had antibodies.

“Now we will do it again and we will see what part of those people also have antibodies,” added the interlocutor.

Short and antibody treated

When asked by the professor if antibodies can facilitate coronavirus disease, A. Žvirblienė replied that the probability is high. However, it should be noted that not only antibodies are important, but also other components that are more difficult to measure. For example, cellular immunity.

“Usually these indicators are not measured in clinical laboratories. I think that having antibodies is really a kind of protection: a person is less likely to get infected or to get sick more easily,” said the researcher.

Therefore, efforts are currently underway to develop a vaccine that elicits both an antibody response and a cellular immune response. The vaccine is expected to provide real protection to the majority of vaccinated people; the virus should not multiply in these people and the infection should not be transmitted to other people. “But it is also not clear how this will work,” said prof. A. Žvirblienė.

All the information, according to the interlocutor, of what is causing the virus is very important at this time.

“If we see that the virus causes the formation of antibodies, there is a greater chance that it will be possible to develop that vaccine that causes an immune response,” said the professor.

One of the current treatments is plasma treatment for coronavirus patients. It’s not very strictly validated yet, so far it’s more like an experiment, collecting data from around the world as much as it helps.

“The plasma should not contain antibodies against the coronavirus, but rather neutralizing antibodies that inactivate the virus, since not everyone can inactivate it. Others may be in front of other parts of the virus, so it doesn’t stop it. The antibodies must surround the virus and prevent it from infecting cells, “said Prof. A. Žvirblienė.

Interestingly, antibodies are also developed in laboratories. According to the professor, it was this mixture of 2 antibodies that treated US President Donald Trump.

“It was not blood plasma, but the development of neutralizing biopharmaceutical antibodies. The treatment is likely to have paid off, although the event itself was strange when an unapproved drug was injected into a politician of this magnitude, “said the interlocutor.