Canadian researchers find COVID antibodies likely last for years

New research from the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute at the Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto suggests that antibodies to coronavirus linger in the body for months, and likely years, after infection, Global News reports.

"We know several people that were infected back in February and they still have quite a bit of antibodies," said LTRI biochemist Anne-Claude Gingras, who also helped develop one of the earliest coronavirus antibodies tests. "The neutralizing antibodies decline a little bit, but they decline very, very slowly."

The research suggests that antibodies peak in the body four weeks after infection, afterwards beginning a slow decline for at least eight months.

Gringas compared the long-lasting antibodies to SARS, which can linger in the body for well over a decade. She noted that one of the patients who suffered from SARS in 2003 still carries antibodies over 17 years later.

The research fuels calls to lift some coronavirus restrictions on people who have already recovered from the illness, as chances of reinfection are unlikely. Many medical experts have been skeptical of such claims that those who were already infected are immune from reinfection.

Gringas somewhat agrees with their skepticism, noting that antibodies may last for vastly different periods of time in the body depending on the person and how severe their symptoms are.

"Different people that have different symptoms’ severity have different levels of antibodies," Gringas explained. "The question will be: the people that didn’t have bad symptoms, will their antibodies fall faster?"

Such problems will likely not exist for the vaccine, however, as everyone will be receiving an equal dosage.

A few coronavirus patients have developed the virus a second time since the start of the pandemic.