A new European study has found a past infection with one of four human coronaviruses that cause the common cold may provide protection against infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
The study, reported in the journal Nature Communications, also found SARS-CoV-2 antibodies remain stable for at least 7 months after an infection with the virus – and levels of some neutralising antibodies increased during this time.
One way to protect people from COVID-19 is to ensure they have antibodies that can neutralise the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which governments are doing through mass vaccination.
Study co-author Professor Gemma Moncunill, from Spain’s Instituto de Salud Global de Barcelona, told medicalnewstoday.com: ‘We wanted to assess the long-term kinetics of antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 and individual factors that affect antibody levels and maintenance, because durable antibody responses are critical for protection.
‘In addition, we had previously observed that antibodies against coronaviruses causing the common cold also recognise SARS-CoV-2, and we hypothesised those antibodies could contribute to protection against COVID-19 and explain the differential susceptibility the population has against the disease.’
The researchers took blood samples four times between March-October 2020 from 578 healthcare workers at a Barcelona university hospital and analysed them for three types of antibodies and six types of SARS-CoV-2 antigens, as well as looking at levels of antibodies for the four common cold coronaviruses.
The different types of antibodies studied revealed both when each antibody response occurred and its purpose; each antibody is specific to a different part of the virus.
The researchers found those who did not contract SARS-CoV-2 tended to have high levels of common cold coronavirus antibodies at the beginning of the study.
And among participants who had a SARS-CoV-2 infection, those who were asymptomatic tended to have more common cold antibodies than those who had symptoms.
Professor Moncunill noted: ‘This means recently having recovered from a cold could protect to some degree against COVID-19, but we have to take into account that immunity to such coronaviruses seems to be short-lived.’
