Antibodies Persist For More Than A Year After COVID-19 Infection, Study Finds

The immune systems of the vast majority of people who have been infected with Covid-19 will continue to carry antibodies against the virus for at least 12 months, according to a peer-reviewed study accepted by the European Journal of Immunology on Sept. 24.

Scientists at the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare studied the presence of antibodies in 1,292 subjects eight months after infection. They found that 96 percent of the subjects still carried neutralizing antibodies and 66 percent still carried a type of antibody called nucleoprotein IgG.

The scientists then investigated antibody levels one year after infection by randomly selecting 367 subjects from the original cohort who hadn’t yet been vaccinated. Eighty-nine percent of the subjects still carried neutralizing antibodies, and 36 percent still carried the IgG antibody.

Antibody levels were higher in subjects who had experienced severe COVID-19 disease. Compared to those who had mild disease, these subjects had two to seven times as many antibodies for at least 13 months after infection.

“Studies of individuals who have recovered from SARS-CoV-2 infection are crucial in determining for how long antibodies persist after infection and whether these antibodies protect against re-infection,” the scientists wrote (pdf). – READ MORE