In an interesting study conducted on the effect of non-neutralizing antibodies on the Covid virus, it was found that patients fared better even with non-neutralizing antibodies. When the person has Covid neutralizing antibodies due to vaccination or previous infection, it can prevent the coronavirus from invading the cells in the body.
Non-Neutralizing Antibodies May Also Protect Against Covid
However, when the body has general antibodies that are not specific to Covid, it offers some degree of protection. In this regard, it can be said that some antibodies are better than others. The presence of non-neutralizing antibodies made it difficult for the coronavirus to mutate easily in the body. In this way, the virus cannot emerge stronger with every infection.
Even though the research is in the early stages, it offers clear evidence that a good immune system with the presence of non-neutralizing antibodies can make it difficult for coronavirus to survive in the body. So far, the vaccine manufacturers have focused only on neutralizing antibodies to fight the coronavirus. When the body has Covid neutralizing antibodies, it does not allow the spike protein of the Covid virus to bind to the cells of our body. In this way, vaccination offers protection from coronavirus.
However, when the person is not vaccinated during Covid infection, the immune system does not sit quiet and fights back in its own way. The immune system recognizes the coronavirus as a foreign element and uses the process of Phagocytosis to target potential threats from external sources.
When the body has non-neutralizing antibodies, it also works along with neutralizing antibodies to fight Covid in a better way. The non-neutralizing antibodies trigger Phagocytosis and help to ingest the coronavirus. In this way, better protection is derived with such antibodies.
The experiment was conducted on mice, and the results showed that non-neutralizing antibodies offered some protection from Covid infection. However, it is interesting to note that neutralizing antibodies in the body affected the Phagocytosis process.
A similar trend was observed even when the researchers used monoclonal antibodies. In this way, it became evident that the presence of neutralizing antibodies helped the Phagocytosis process in different ways. The increased dose did not result in better protection as the spike protein somehow continued to evade the immune system after a certain level. It is interesting that even malaria and pneumonia patients showed similar behavior.
Health experts are of the opinion that further research in this area will be beneficial as it can help vaccine makers to develop better quality vaccines. In this way, the presence of antibodies in the body will be able to take care of more infections in the long run. The vaccines given for a particular virus can also counter other mutations in the future with the presence of general antibodies.
Due to this reason, a strong immune system is able to defend itself naturally against many attacks. Even though people with good immunity were not able to avoid Covid infection, most of them did not face extreme outcomes as the body was somehow able to handle the coronavirus without many complications. Apart from that, having a good immune system will help in speedy recovery. This means that the need for hospitalization is reduced to a large extent when the person has a good immune response to the virus.
Several experts are also thinking about combining Covid vaccines with other vaccines given for flu and measles. In this way, they can reduce the number of vaccines and offer better protection from a host of infections in the long run. Such combinations will also boost the vaccination process across the country.
