Antibody Persistence after Primary Sars-Cov-2 Infection and Protection Against Future Variants Including Omicron in Adolescents: National, Prospective Cohort Study
Government of the United Kingdom - Immunisation and Countermeasures Division; St. George’s University of London - Paediatric Infectious Diseases Research Group
Date Written: March 30, 2022
Abstract
We initiated enhanced surveillance in 18 secondary schools to monitor SARS-CoV-2 infection and transmission in September 2020. Students and Staff provided longitudinal blood samples to test for variant-specific SARS-CoV-2 antibodies using in-house receptor binding domain assays. We recruited 1,189 students and 1,020 staff; 160 (97 students, 63 staff) were nucleocapsid-antibody positive at baseline and had sufficient serum for further analysis. Most participants developed sustained cross-protective antibodies against their infecting (wild-type, WT) alpha, beta and delta variants but at lower titres than WT. Staff had significantly lower antibodies titres against WT, alpha, beta and delta variants than students (all p<0.01). In participants with sufficient sera, only 2.3% (1/43) students and 17.2% (5/29) staff had omicron antibodies; they also had higher SARS-CoV-2 antibody titres against WT (3042.5; 95%CI: 769.0-12,036.2) than those who were omicron antibody-negative (680.7; 534.2-867.4). Infection with WT induced cross-protective antibodies against alpha, beta and delta variants, but not omicron.
Note:
Funding Information: This study was funded by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC).
Conflict of Interests: None declared.
Ethical Approval: The protocol was approved by PHE Research Ethics and Governance Group (reference NR0228; 24 August 2020).
Aiano, Felicity and Ireland, Georgina and Baawuah, Frances and Beckmann, Joanne and Okike, Ifeanyichukwu and Ahmad, Shazaad and Garstang, Joanna and Brent, Andrew J. and Brent, Bernadette and Borrow, Ray and Linley, Ezra and Ho, Sammy and Carr, Christine and Zambon, Maria and Poh, John and Warrener, Lenesha and Amirthalingam, Gayatri and Brown, Kevin E. and Ramsay, Mary E. and Hoschler, Katja and Ladhani, Shamez N., Antibody Persistence after Primary Sars-Cov-2 Infection and Protection Against Future Variants Including Omicron in Adolescents: National, Prospective Cohort Study (March 30, 2022). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4071576 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4071576
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