This comprehensive and cross-cutting study designed in the early days of the pandemic, in March 2020. Researchers Patrícia Figueiredo-Campos and Birte Blankenhaus, first authors of this study, have established an internal, sensitive, express and flexible COVID-19 serological test formula. The optimization and validation of the control carried out within the framework of Serology4COVID, a consortium of five studies institutes in Lisbon and Oeiras. Working with doctors on the campus of Santa Maria Hospital, the study team began tracking the antibody grades of more than three hundred COVID-19 hospital patients and fitness workers, and more than two hundred postvolunteers. COVID-19.
“Our immune formula recognizes SARS-CoV-2 as destructive and produces antibodies in reaction to it, which helps fight the virus. “The effects of this 6-month cross-sectional examination show a classic trend with an immediate accumulation of antibodies grades within the first 3 weeks of COVID-19 symptoms and, as expected, relief to intermediate grades thereafter,” explains Marc Veldhoen, adding that “at this early reaction phase, on average, men produce more antibodies than women. however, grades are balanced in the solution phase and are similar between the sexes in the months after SARS-CoV-2 infection. “In the acute phase of the immune reaction, the team observed higher grades of antibodies in subjects with more serious diseases. , the effects show that age is not somewhat confusing for antibody production, as no significant differences were observed between age groups. Worldwide, 90% of subjects have detectable antibodies up to 7 months after contracting OVID-19 C.
The study team then evaluated the function of these antibodies, their neutralizing activity against the SARS-CoV-2 virus. In collaboration with the Portuguese Institute of Sangue e Transplantacao (IPST), the study team analyzed the neutralizing capacity of the antibodies produced. through patients and volunteers. ” Although we observed relief in antibody grades over time, the effects of our neutralizing tests showed physically powerful neutralizing activity until the seventh month after infection in a giant proportion of subjects who had in the past tested positive for the virus,” veldhoen explains.