Corona study: antibodies probably offer long term immunity

This was the result of an, as yet unpublished, study of 327 Covid-19-patients in the Chinese city of Wuhan, which belong to the world’s first infected people.

High antibody rate in patients

More than 80 percent of patients six months after their disease is still biologically active antibodies have been shown to be able to make the Virus harmless, said of the virologist Ulf Dittmer, the Director of the Institute for Virology of the University hospital Essen.

In the study of the German-Chinese joint lab in Wuhan were involved in addition to Chinese experts, three virologists from food, including Mirko Trilling.

The results of the investigation will be submitted in the next few days, a trade magazine for review.

Antibody formation similar to that of other viruses

The studied patients had all been treated in hospital and had shown mild or severe symptoms, as Dittmer.

The formation of the antibody have met, what you know also of other viral diseases, said of the virologist of the German press Agency dpa.

“An antibody response against the virus is usually caused fast. The amount of antibodies is rising very sharply, reaches a peak, then falls again and then stabilizes at a level that can convey protection against a new infection.”

Vaccination could no longer protect

In the last two to three months of each six-month investigation period in the case of the Chinese Covid-19 patients, antibodies remained quantity is relatively stable.

“I believe that it follows that we can at least go out for a time of immunity to the disease,” said Dittmer more.

This could also mean that a vaccine could provide a longer lasting protection if the vaccine is in a position similar to stable antibody responses as a Covid-19-trigger disease.

Actual duration of Immunity unknown

How long such immunity to stop the car, is still unknown. “According to the current study, you have to go out but at least several months, probably years.”

Currently being discussed in other Corona-virus types that are immune to stop, only a few years. But this is not yet been sufficiently investigated.

Dittmer stressed that the world has, as yet, no clear case is known in which a genesener Patient again with the Sars-CoV-2-Virus was infected. This would also speak for a sustained immunity.

In the past few weeks, investigations were known, which had sustained the hope for a long-lasting immunity, and thus a long effectiveness of a possible vaccine attenuated.

So blood tests of the first Corona-patients in Germany were treated at the end of January in Munich, clinic Schwabing, had shown, in some cases, a clear decrease in the number of so-called neutralizing antibodies in the blood.

It is a fact that vaccination against Covid-19 does not last forever

In particular, after encouraging interim results, with first Corona vaccines, many researchers see this as still the most powerful future weapon against the disease.

“The only Illusion which we must take, is that vaccination against Covid-19 lasts a lifetime,” said Clemens Wendtner, chief physician of the clinic for infectious diseases at the Schwabing in Munich clinic.

“It could also be a Covid-19 vaccine, the need to be vaccinated as with the Influenza vaccination on a regular basis.”

It was not unusual that vaccinations were for years and years, but at regular intervals would have to be.

Understanding of important protection measures continues to be in demand

“You should see what can cause the vaccination for all of us,” said Wendtner. Even after the encouraging interim results with the vaccine expected to experts looking for a in the width, usable and approved vaccines at the earliest in the course of the coming year.

“It is so, also continue to have patience and understanding for the important protection measures of each and every Individual asked.”

Chinese researchers reported in the journal “Nature Medicine” that the anti-body after two months, especially in patients with symptom went free of course strong, but also in actually ill patients, the values fell.

Patients with little symptoms had also developed fewer antibodies and, therefore, a weaker immune response. Symptom-free patients have not been examined in the new study, from food/Wuhan, however.

Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa)

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