Antibody responses to SARS-CoV-2 in patients of novel coronavirus disease 2019

Juanjuan Zhao; Quan Yuan; Haiyan Wang; Wei Liu; Xuejiao Liao; Yingying Su; Xin Wang; Jing Yuan; Tingdong Li; Jinxiu Li; Shen Qian; Congming Hong; Fuxiang Wang; Yingxia Liu; Zhaoqin Wang; Qing He; Zhiyong Li; Bin He; Tianying Zhang; Shengxiang Ge; Lei Liu; Jun Zhang; Ningshao Xia; Zheng Zhang

In addition to the diagnosis value of Ab test, our study revealed a strong positive correlation between clinical severity and antibody titer since 2-week after illness onset, for the first time in COVID-19 patients. The results suggested that a high titer of total antibodies against the virus may be considered as a risk factor of critical illness, independently from older age, male gender and comorbidities (Table 4) It should be noted that there were some limitations of this study. First, for most of RNA tests of the patients were based on upper respiratory tract specimens, the positive rate may be higher in detection using lower respiratory tract specimens, such as bronchoalveolar lavage fluid, deep tracheal aspirates, and induced sputum may yield higher sensitivity for RNA tests. Second, we cannot evaluate the persistence of antibodies because samples were collected during the acute illness course of patients. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission. the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity.