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VIRUS-ITALY-IMMUNITY
Covid antibodies last 8 months after infection: study
ROME, May 11, 2021 (BSS/AFP) – Antibodies against coronavirus remained in the blood of
patients with Covid-19 for at least eight months after they were infected, Italian
researchers said Tuesday.
They were present “regardless of the severity of the illness, the age of the patients
or the presence of other pathologies,” according to a statement from the San Raffaele
hospital in Milan.
The researchers, working with Italy’s ISS national health institute, studied 162
patients with symptomatic coronavirus who turned up at the emergency room during the
country’s first wave of infections last year.
Blood samples were taken in March and April and again at the end of November from
those who survived. Some 29 patients died.
“The presence of neutralising antibodies, while reducing over time, was very
persistent — eight months after diagnosis, there were only three patients who no longer
showed positivity to the test,” said the statement, issued jointly with the ISS.
The study, published in the Nature Communications scientific journal, also emphasised
the importance of the development of antibodies in recovering from coronavirus.
“Those who failed to produce them within the first 15 days of infection are at
greater risk of developing severe forms of Covid-19,” it said.
Two thirds of the patients surveyed were men, and the average age was 63. Some 57
percent of them had a pre-existing pathology, notably hypertension and diabetes.
BSS/AFP/MMA/2044HRS