There are fears that our immune system could quickly forget how it came to terms with the increasingly unfounded SARS-CoV-2 virus with an Australian study showing that our blood is still capable of a strong eight-month response after the disease.
This is good news for those concerned that COVID-19 vaccines will not provide the protection period needed to regulate the spread of the virus across the population.
“This has been a black cloud hanging over the protection that can be afforded by any COVID-19 vaccine and offers real hope, once vaccinated or vaccines are developed, that they provide long-term protection, “says Monash University scientist Menno van Zelm.
While it is still too early to tell exactly how long immunity to this particular coronavirus may last, we can be confident that time will be on our side.
In a collaboration between Monash University, Alfred Hospital, and the Burnet Institute in Melbourne, researchers analyzed blood samples taken from 25 COVID-19-tested volunteers.
Each sample provided a picture of the status of the immune system, from just four days after infection to up to eight months.
Another 36 people with no history of the disease also took a blood sample or two for comparison.
The COVID-positive samples suggest that concentrations of free-floating SARS-CoV-2 antibodies begin to fade just 20 days after symptoms appear, a finding that according to studies previously suggested that antibody levels fall sharply, especially in mild cases of COVID-19.
While this is not surprising in itself, it has caused controversy among immunologists as to whether we should expect waves of transplants in the coming years.
Antibodies are like mug-shots for the immune system, allowing it to easily jump on past criminals who wish to reappear. Without them, waltz infection is far too easy to recover from.
For some pathogens, these ‘want’ chemical posters hold around for years. Measles, for example, stimulates an antibody response that virtually declines throughout your life.
Other representatives of the disease disappear a little faster. For tetanus this out-of-sight action takes a little over a decade, requiring frequent reminders in the form of booster vaccines to push the system in to print a new batch of antibody mug shots. hit again.
The key to this antibody printing service is white blood cells called B memory cells. Formed during disease to print antibodies specific to an invader, these cells can hide away for decades only. once the heat dies, ready to immediately generate a new supply of antibodies if the pathogen reappears.
To see if a COVID-immune system still had enough B cells to do the job after just a few months, the researchers introduced pieces of SARS-CoV-2 with fluorescent labels into the blood samples once on the disease.
Not only did the analysis reveal an important response in all COVID-19 blood samples, but it also allowed the team to determine which types of B memory cells were responding to which specific body part. virus.
“These results are important because they show, conclusively, that patients with the COVID-19 virus actually maintain immunity against the virus and the disease,” van Zelm said.
And since the proteins studied by the study are considered key sites to target, we can expect that most vaccines provide a good level of immunity for at least eight months. .
Beyond that? Time will tell. Hopefully we can bring in news in the coming years of continued protection that goes far beyond expectations.
To fully control the pandemic, if not completely eradicated, we need at least 70 per cent of the population to be immune within the same time window. Only then can we be sure that the virus has so few places to hide, it may disappear.
Right now we can be pretty sure the window is eight months wide. Hopefully it’s enough.
This research was published in Psychology of science.