PUBLISHED TUE, NOV 3 20208:01 AM ESTUPDATED TUE, NOV 3 20203:56 PM EST
KEY POINTS
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Cellular, or “T-cell,” immunity against Covid-19 is likely to be
present within most adults six months after primary infection, a new study
said.
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Research by the U.K. Coronavirus Immunology Consortium (UK-CIC),
Public Health England and Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust has found
“robust T-cell responses” to the coronavirus virus six months after infection.
Cellular, or “T-cell,” immunity against Covid-19 is likely to be present within most adults six months after primary infection, a new study said.
Research by the U.K. Coronavirus Immunology
Consortium (UK-CIC), Public Health England and Manchester University NHS
Foundation Trust has found “robust T-cell responses” to the coronavirus six
months after infection.
T-cells are a part of our immune system that
attack cells which have been infected with a virus or other kind of pathogen
and they help other antibody-producing cells in the immune system. Scientists
have been investigating T-cell responses to the coronavirus to see how lasting
any immune response might be in individuals who have caught, and recovered
from, Covid-19.
This latest study looked at 100 individuals who
had tested positive for the coronavirus in March and April of 2020 but had not
been hospitalized with the virus. All 100 individuals had experienced either
mild or moderate symptoms or were asymptomatic (56 versus 44 people), the study
noted.
Serum samples were collected monthly to measure
antibody levels, and blood samples were taken after six months to assess the
cellular (T-cell) response to the virus.
A range of analyses were carried out to assess
different aspects of the T-cell response including the magnitude of response
and the response to different proteins from the virus, the study noted.
“T-cell responses were present in all
individuals at six months after SARS-CoV-2 infection,” it said, indicating “that
a robust cellular memory against the virus persists for at least six months.”
The study found, however, that “the size of
T-cell response differed between individuals, being considerably (50%) higher
in people who had experienced symptomatic disease at the time of infection six
months previously.” The study has not yet been published in a medical journal
or peer-reviewed.
Piece
of the Covid-19 puzzle
The findings could improve our understanding of
how immunity to the coronavirus works, as well as informing future vaccine
strategies, the study — authored by Dr. Shamez Ladhani, a consultant
epidemiologist at Public Health England — noted.
“Cellular immunity is a complex but potentially
very significant piece of the Covid-19 puzzle, and it’s important that more
research be done in this area. However, early results show that T-cell
responses may outlast the initial antibody response, which could have a
significant impact on Covid vaccine development and immunity research.”
The study notes that further research is now
needed to assess whether this immune response is maintained over the longer
term and to better understand how the strength of the cellular immune response
corresponds to the likelihood of reinfection.
Professor Paul Moss, the U.K. Coronavirus
Immunology Consortium lead from the University of Birmingham, said that further
work was needed to find out if people who were symptomatic with Covid-19 were
safer from future reinfection.
“Interestingly, we found that cellular immunity
is stronger at this time point in those people who had symptomatic infection
compared with asymptomatic cases. We now need more research to find out if
symptomatic individuals are better protected against reinfection in the
future.”
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