According to Julio Lorenzi, a viral immunologist at the Rockefeller University in New York City, “The main message is that the immune response persists.”
“We see these B cells surviving over time and the antibodies six months after infection are even better than the beginning of the infection,” he added.
The researchers examined the antibodies from 87 people six months after contracting the virus, and discovered that even though the antibodies levels in the blood declined, the immune proteins were still there even after six months, which is great news! Additionally, B cell levels were stable, therefore, it has been proven that those cells will remain in our bodies for several months.
In fact, B cells have been proven to persist more than 6 months in the human body, as other studies have shown. The levels of B cells and T cells are expected to decline slowly after some time, as researchers have reported on Nov. 16 at bioRxiv.org. These findings might indicate that the immunity can leave up to a few years in our bodies.
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Additionally, researchers also found that B cells make new variations. What’s awesome, is that these new variations have been proven to work better in preventing the virus from infecting the new cells, which will make it harder for the coronavirus to escape recognition by the immune system.
Their findings are very encouraging, even though research is still needed to identify whether people with such antibodies can contract the virus again, or they will have a less severe form. According to Nina Luning Prak, an immunologist at the University of Pennsylvania, “When the first studies started coming out about antibody responses to SARS-CoV-2, everyone was in an uproar about the response being potentially defective.”
“As a result, [some scientists thought that] perhaps [B cells] made antibodies that were not so great,” Luning Prak says. However, that might be a part of a normal immune response, Park continued saying. According to researchers, patients who experienced a more severe coronavirus form showed a defective response.
Researchers have also found that after surviving the virus, “when you look [at COVID-19 patients] six months out, antibody responses look far more conventional,” they added.
Also read: Are We Immune After Recovering from COVID-19?
