New studies provide “encouraging” proof that people who recover from the coronavirus gain protection from reinfection in the short term, but Boston University immunologist John Connor says it remains to be seen whether any will gain long-lasting immunity.
“What’s encouraging is that it says natural infection can lead to the development of antibodies and the hope is that they will be long-lasting,” said Connor, of Boston University’s National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories.
In a study slated to appear later this year in Immunity, a Cell Press science journal, researchers from various universities throughout China found 14 patients who recently recovered from the novel coronavirus all had some level of neutralizing response. Eight displayed cellular immunity upon discharge and two weeks later, six still had high levels of antibodies, suggesting protection from reinfection for some patients.
A second Chinese study that has not yet been peer-reviewed found similar results.
These are two first-of-of-a-kind studies as doctors and public health experts race to gain an understanding of the coronavirus and how it will continue to spread and infect populations across the globe amid predicted resurgences later this year and into the future.
The virus was first discovered in late 2019 in Wuhan, China, and the medical community has struggled to understand what, if any, immunity infection will provide people who have been exposed or who have recovered.
The studies are “good” news for the 1.1 million people worldwide who have already recovered from the highly infectious virus, Connor said. More than 3.6 million people across the globe — including 1.2 million in the US — have contracted COVID-19 since late 2019, according to the Johns Hopkins University coronavirus tracker.
Health experts and public officials say actual infection rates could be much higher. CDC director Dr. Robert Redfield last month estimated as many as 25% of people with the coronavirus could be asymptomatic
“These reports provide evidence that after people become infected, they are capable of creating an immune response that appears to develop even after the acute infection has occurred,” Connor said. “It looks like there is a path to making a strong antibody response, which is good.”
Still, Connor stressed there are still more questions than answers when it comes to COVID-19 and immunity. A lot of those answers will come in time, he said.
While the studies appear to prove what many scientists already suspected — in the short-term there is “definite” protection from future infections — there isn’t enough data to say what happens with immunity in the long-term. Will people who have recovered from virus be immune from infection one, two, three months or even a year down the road?
“We are unfortunately doing the experiment right now with real people in real-time,” he said.
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May 06, 2020 at 06:53AM
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Coronavirus immunity studies ‘encouraging’ for short-term protection from reinfection, says BU immunologist - Boston Herald
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