Recent studies have indicated that antibody responses to SARS-CoV-2 drop significantly within 2 months. In this preprint, Wu et al. analysed antibody responses in 349 individuals who were among the first to become infected with SARS-CoV-2. All antiviral antibody titres significantly increased in the first weeks after disease onset, followed by a contraction phase, where IgM became undetectable at around week 10–13. Importantly, although Spike-targeted IgG (IgG-S) declined over time, it remained detectable at relatively high levels until the end of the 6-month study period. IgG-S titres correlated closely with neutralizing capacity, although exact correlates of protection for SARS-CoV-2 are still elusive. These results suggest that antibody responses in symptomatic patients with COVID-19 follow a prototypical progression and result in a sustained memory response, suggesting long-term protective immunity.
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
References
Original article
- Wu J, et al. SARS-CoV-2 infection induces sustained humoral immune responses in convalescent patients following symptomatic COVID-19. medRxiv. 2020 doi: 10.1101/2020.07.21.20159178. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]