Tests on French health workers with mild forms of coronavirus show that 98 per cent of them developed antibodies powerful enough to neutralise the virus a month later.
The study at two Strasbourg hospitals will help to ease scientific concerns that people with mild forms of the disease do not develop robust immunity to the Sars-Cov-2 virus. The findings also show that the antibody response grows for a few weeks rather than fading immediately after infection.
Olivier Schwartz, head of the virus and immunity unit at the Institut Pasteur and one of the co-authors of the study, said it was too soon to be certain what the results would mean for the long term. But he agreed that the maintenance of protection for more than a month was good news. “Immunity seems to be conserved and even increased, which is really encouraging,” he said.