Studies of thousands of people in England indicate that coronavirus immunity is slowly shutting down – by at least one measure.
Researchers who sent home finger-prick tests to more than 365,000 randomly selected individuals in the UK found a 3% reduction in Covid-1 antibodies in just three months.
“We note a significant reduction in the proportion of the population with detectable antibodies in three rounds of national surveillance using self-administered lateral flow tests 12, 18 and 24 weeks after the first peak of infection in England,” the team wrote. In a pre-printed version of their report published before the peer review.
“This is consistent with the evidence that immunity to seasonal coronaviruses decreased in the 6 to 12 months after infection and also in the data filling data on SARS-CoV-2, which also showed a time decrease in antibody levels in individuals after longitudinal studies.”
The research was published on Monday by Imperial College London and market research firm Ipsos Mori. At the start of the study, in June, 6% of those who tested tested positive for IgG antibodies against coronavirus, they said. As of September, only 4.4% of them did. For health care workers, rates remained almost the same.
Antibodies are proteins that your body naturally makes to fight infections. IgG is one type – tests were not designed to detect other types of antibodies. Other research teams have found that other types of antibodies can last longer than IgG.
The results also confirm previous studies showing that people who do not have symptoms of Covid-19 will lose detectable antibodies sooner than those who are more seriously infected.
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