India
oi-Vicky Nanjappa
New Delhi, Apr 11: With several experts stating that immunity is key to fighting COVID-19, the question is how long does it last.
According to a research by the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB) says that the immunity last for around 6 to 7 months, but 20 to 30 per cent of those affected lose the immunity after 6 moths.
Dr. Anurag Agarwal, director of IGIB said in a tweet that the key finding of 20-30% of subjects losing virus neutralising activity, despite staying seropositive, at 6 month follow-up helps understand why the large second wave has not spared cities like Mumbai with high seropositivity.
The study by IGIB also established that seropositivity was inversely proportional to the test positivity rate. This meant a higher relevance of antibodies leads to a decline in transmission.
Dr Shantanu Sengupta, senior scientist from IGIB said that in September,…