Antibodies in recovering COVID-19 patients fade quickly: Study

New Delhi : The researchers have found that the antibodies in the recovering COVID-19 patients slashed rapidly during the time the symptoms suppressed.

Since no official vaccine is available in the market, the hospitals are relying on the plasma therapy on patients who are in severe condition. The blood of recovered patients contains antibodies that act against the coronavirus.

Meanwhile, there is a whole lot of debates over the effectiveness of plasma therapy; but it has been acknowledged that it reduces recovery time and hospitalization.

In a recent study, published in journal mBio, if convalescent plasma is ultimately shown to have a clear benefit, the authors concluded, then it needs to be collected during a specific window of time after recovery.

The study also mentioned that the plasma cannot be taken from the blood of recovering patients. It also claimed that the person must have remained with no symptoms for atleast 14days after recovering from coronavirus.

“We don’t want to transfuse the virus, just transfuse the antibodies,” said Andres Finzi, Ph.D., at the University of Montreal, in Canada. “But at the same time, our work shows that the capacity of the plasma to neutralize viral particles is going down during those first weeks.”

In the new longitudinal study, Finzi and his colleagues analyzed blood samples collected at one-month intervals from 31 individuals recovering from COVID-19. They measured levels of immunoglobulins that act against the coronavirus S protein and tested the ability of the antibodies to neutralize the virus.

The researchers observed variation on the level of individual patients but identified a consistent overall signal: The levels of Immunoglobulins G, A, and M that target the binding site decreased between 6 and 10 weeks after symptoms began. During the same time period, the ability of the antibodies to neutralise the virus similarly fell.