How Long Do COVID-19 Antibodies Last After Infection? Here's What Study Says

COVID-19 antibodies: Researchers worked with Italy's ISS national health institute and studied 162 patients suffering from symptomatic Coronavirus. They came to the emergency room when the country was battling the first wave of infection last year.

On Tuesday, the Italian researchers said that the COVID-19 antibodies remained in the blood of the patients for at least 8 months. Working with Italy's ISS national health institute, they studied 162 patients with symptomatic COVID-19 and reached the conclusion. All the patients had turned up at the emergency room during the country's first wave of the infection in 2020.

According to a statement from the San Raffaele hospital in Milan, the antibodies are present regardless of the severity of the illness, the patients' age or the presence of other diseases. The researchers collected the blood samples of the patients in March and April and again at the end of November from those who survived. Around 29 of the affected people were dead.

The statement, issued jointly with the ISS said, "The presence of neutralising antibodies, while reducing overtime, was very persistent- eight months after diagnosis, there were only three patients who no longer showed positivity to the test".

The study is published in the Nature Communications scientific journal. It also emphasised the importance of the development of antibodies in recovering from the disease. It said that those who failed to produce them within the first 15 days of the ailment are at a greater risk of developing severe forms of the virus.

Two-thirds of the patients surveyed were men. The average age was 63 and about 57 per cent of them had pre-existing pathologies such as hypertension and diabetes.

Meanwhile, Italy is planning to lift quarantine restrictions for tourists coming from European countries, Britain and Isreal from the mid of May in an attempt to revive the tourism industry.