More babies are being born with coronavirus immunity

[Chris Smith]

• A new coronavirus study from Singapore indicates that babies whose mothers are infected during pregnancy are likely to be born with COVID-19 antibodies.
• The neutralizing antibodies could provide immunity from birth, although researchers can’t say what sort of protection the babies get or how long it will last.
• Of the 16 pregnant women in the studies, five gave birth by the time it was published, and all the newborns had detectable levels of antibodies in their blood. Two women lost their babies, and one of the miscarriages might have been caused by COVID-19 complications.

Neutralizing antibodies are the proteins the immune system creates to stop a virus from spreading. The antibodies bind to the spike protein, preventing it from infecting cells. Coronavirus vaccines will actually teach the immune system to respond to the infection by inducing antibodies specific to COVID-19. Antibodies might disappear after a while, but the COVID-19 protection might last longer than that thanks to another set of immune system components: B and T cells patrolling the blood that will retain the memory of the virus.

Researchers have no idea how long coronavirus immunity will last, whether the protection follows infection or exposure to the virus. There’s hope immunity might last at least a year, but more time will have to pass for researchers to make such determinations. However, a subset of the population could have COVID-19 immunity from the moment they’re born: Babies whose mothers survived the coronavirus during pregnancy.

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More babies are being born with coronavirus immunity originally appeared on BGR.com on Fri, 18 Dec 2020 at 20:11:17 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Via BRG - Boy Genius Report