Estimating decay curves of neutralising antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 infection

Poehler, M.; Gibson, L.; Lustig, A.; Moreland, N. J.; McGregor, R.; James, A.

Estimating the longevity of an individual's immune response to the Sars-Cov-2 virus is vital for future planning, particularly of vaccine requirements. Neutralising antibodies (Nabs) are increasingly being recognised as a correlate of protection and whilst there are many studies which follow the response of a cohort of people, each study alone is not enough to predict the long term response. Studies use different assays to measure Nabs making them hard to combine. We present a modelling method which can combine multiple datasets and can be updated as more detailed data becomes available. Combining data from six published datasets we predict that after a short period of rapid decay the half-life of the NAb response is approximately one year giving optimism that the response will be long-lived.