According to a new study which provides strong evidence for the likelihood that COVID-19 vaccines will work for long periods and the people who have recovered from the novel coronavirus infection have immune memory to guard against reinfection for a minimum of eight months.
While earlier studies have shown that antibodies against the coronavirus has decreased after the primary few months of infection, which has raised concerns that people may lose immunity quickly, and therefore the new research is published in the journal Science Immunology, puts these concerns to rest.
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According to the scientists, including those from Monash University in Australia, specific cells within the system called memory B cells, “remembers” infection by the virus, and if re-exposed to the virus, triggers a protective immune reaction through rapid production of protective antibodies.
In the study, the researchers recruited a cohort of 25 COVID-19 patients and took 36 blood samples from them from Day 4 post infection to Day 242 post infection.
The antibodies against the virus began to drop off after 20 days post infection the scientists found.
However, they said all patients continued to possess memory B cells that recognized one among two components of the virus — the spike protein which helps the virus enter host cells, and the nucleocapsid proteins.
The researchers supported their analysis and said, these virus-specific memory B cells were stably present as far as eight months after infection.
The scientists believe the findings give hope to the efficacy of any vaccine against the virus, and also explain why there are only a few samples of genuine reinfection across the many that have tested positive for the virus globally.
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Menno van Zelm, from the Monash University Department of Immunology and Pathology the study co-author said, “These results are important because they show, definitively, that patients infected with the COVID-19 virus neutralize fact retain immunity against the virus and therefore the disease.”
“This has been a black cloud hanging over the potential protection that would be provided by any COVID-19 vaccine and provides real hope that, once a vaccine or vaccines are developed, they’re going to provide long-term protection,” van Zelm said.
