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Charlotte Thålin is a specialist physician at Danderyd Hospital and researcher responsible for the so-called community study.
– At first, when you’ve been sick, you get both antibodies, that is, antibodies to both the nucleocapsid and the nail protein, he says.
– What we see now, when we follow these individuals, is that the antibodies to the nucleocapsid in particular disappear quite quickly, he continues.
In response to a corona infection The immune system forms a variety of antibodies. Some target the spikes on the surface of the virus, the nail protein, while others target other parts of the virus.
In a substudy that has yet to be published or reviewed, Community study researchers followed 2,000 Danderyd Hospital employees to see how long the various antibodies appear to be after an infection.
– Now we see that these different antibodies behave completely differently over time, says Charlotte Thålin.
At four months of follow-up After infection, 98 percent of those who were ill still had peak antibodies. This is positive, because they are the ones who give immunity. But for nucleocapsid antibodies, which are measured in some commercial antibody tests, it looked different.
– A third seem to lose their antibodies against the nucleocapsid fairly quickly after infection, says Charlotte Thålin.
Do you think that immunity in society may be higher than we think, because perhaps the wrong antibody was measured?
– It could be so, but this plays a role over time. When antibodies were measured in the spring and early summer, those who had been ill probably had the nucleocapsid antibodies left.
– Now it’s been quite a while since our first wave. Many of the tests available in the city only measure nucleocapsid antibodies, and then I think many will get a false negative answer if they test themselves with that method, says Charlotte Thålin.
Hear more about how long different antibodies stay and what it means for immunity, in Vetenskapsradion’s Special Crown.
