translated from Spanish: Study indicated that Covid-19 antibodies last 12 months after infection and increase with the vaccine

The antibodies that are generated as a response to SARS-CoV-2 infection last between six and twelve months after infection, protect against the different variants that circulate and are even potentiated with vaccines. This has been proven by an international team of scientists led by the American Michel Nussenzweig, head of the Molecular Immunology Laboratory at Rockefeller University and researcher at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the results are published today in the journal “Nature”. Researchers have found that antibodies continue to evolve over a period of 6 to 12 months and that they are enhanced when the person who suffered the infection receives the vaccine, so they have concluded that immunity to COVID-19 could be long-lasting. Michel Nussenzweig and his colleagues analysed, until they reached these conclusions, the blood samples of 63 people who had recovered from the disease in the previous year. Of these, 26 had already received at least one dose of Moderna’s or Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines, and found that between 6 and 12 months later the range of antibodies produced had increased in both range and potency. Subsequently, when the individuals were vaccinated, they went on to produce “highly effective” antibodies against the different variants already circulating of SARS-CoV-2.One year after infection, the neutralizing activity against all forms of the virus included in this study was lower among people who had not been vaccinated than in those who had been. This, according to research results, suggests that vaccination increases immunity in those who have already had the disease. The researchers have also pointed out that if cells evolve in a similar way in vaccinated people who had not had the disease, a “booster” vaccine programmed in an appropriate way may also be able to generate a protective immunity against the variants of the virus circulating around the world.

Original source in Spanish