Coronavirus infection may offer protection from reinfection for this long; read here

London: A brand new UK examine has instructed that people who’ve beforehand contracted COVID-19 are extremely unlikely to contract the sickness once more for at the very least six months following their first an infection.

The examine, carried out as a part of a serious collaboration between the University of Oxford and Oxford University Hospitals (OUH) NHS Foundation Trust involving frontline healthcare employees, means that most individuals are unlikely to get COVID-19 once more if they’ve already had it within the earlier six months.

“This is really good news because we can be confident that, at least in the short term, most people who get COVID-19 won’t get it again,” mentioned Professor David Eyre of the University of Oxford’s Nuffield Department of Population Health, one of many authors of the paper which is in pre-print phases.

“This ongoing study involving a large cohort of healthcare workers has shown that being infected with COVID-19 does offer protection against reinfection for most people for at least six months. We found no new symptomatic infections in any of the participants who had tested positive for antibodies, while 89 of those who had tested negative did contract the virus,” he mentioned.

Prof Eyre defined that we all know from a earlier examine that antibody ranges fall over time, however this newest examine exhibits that there’s some immunity in those that have been contaminated.

“We will continue to follow this cohort of staff carefully to see how long protection lasts and whether the previous infection affects the severity of infection if people do get infected again,” he mentioned.

Additionally, the other additionally proved true ” healthcare employees who didn’t have antibodies towards COVID-19 have been extra more likely to develop the an infection.

The newest examine is a part of a serious ongoing workers testing programme supported by the NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre and Public Health England and coated a 30-week interval between April and November this 12 months, with 12,180 healthcare employees employed at OUH.

“This is an exciting finding, indicating that infection with the virus provides at least short-term protection from re-infection ” this information is available in the identical month as different encouraging information about Covid vaccines,” mentioned Dr Katie Jeffery, Director of Infection Prevention and Control for OUH.

The healthcare employees have been examined for antibodies to the virus that causes COVID-19 as a manner of detecting who had been contaminated earlier than. The hospital examined workers often for COVID-19, each after they turned unwell with signs and in addition as a part of common testing of nicely workers.

The researchers then adopted whether or not workers who had been contaminated earlier than had the identical variety of new COVID-19 infections as those that had not been contaminated earlier than.

During the examine, 89 of 11,052 workers with out antibodies developed a brand new an infection with signs. None of the 1,246 workers with antibodies developed a symptomatic an infection.

Staff with antibodies have been additionally much less more likely to test positive for COVID-19 with out signs, 76 workers with out antibodies examined positive in comparison with simply three with antibodies. The three healthcare employees with antibodies who examined positive for the virus that causes COVID-19 have been all nicely and didn’t develop signs of COVID-19 once more.

Susan Hopkins, Deputy Director, National Infection Service, PHE and one of many examine’s authors mentioned: “This examine is a unbelievable instance of how well-structured long-term cohort surveillance can produce massively helpful outcomes.

“Studies like this one are absolutely vital in helping us to understand how this new virus behaves and what the implications are for acquired immunity.”

“Our comprehensive staff testing programme is revealing a regular stream of valuable information as we try to better understand how to tackle this disease,” added OUH Chief Executive Officer Dr Bruno Holthof.

Despite an estimated 51 million folks contaminated with the virus worldwide, with excessive ranges of transmission ongoing, reviews of sufferers changing into re-infected after already having had COVID-19 stay uncommon.

However, up till now there haven’t been any large-scale research of how a lot safety from reinfection folks get after Covid-19.