Two new studies in monkeys claim that humans can develop protective immunity to the novel coronavirus
The studies, published in the journal Science, looked at a prototype vaccine and whether Covid-19 infection provides immunity against re-exposure.
Dan Barouch, director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, said, “The global Covid-19 pandemic has made the development of a vaccine a top biomedical priority, but very little is currently known about protective immunity to the SARS-CoV-2 virus. In these two studies, we demonstrate in rhesus macaques that prototype vaccines protected against infection and that Covid-19 infection protected against re-exposure,”
In one of the new studies, researchers infected nine monkeys with Covid-19, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus. After they recovered, the team exposed them to the virus again and the animals did not get sick
The second study, involving many of the same researchers and led by Jingyou Yu, involved vaccinating 35 adult macaques with DNA vaccine candidates designed to generate protective antibodies. They were exposed to the coronavirus six weeks later and had developed levels of antibodies in the blood sufficient to neutralize it.
