Ashfaq Wani
Recent antibody testing in Germany, the Netherlands, and the United States show that in many areas, between 2% and 30% of the population is infected with the pandemic COVID19 virus.
According to a survey conducted by Stanford University in the United States, the actual number of cases is many times more than the number of reported cases.
The survey also found that in most cases of the coronavirus, patients had mild symptoms.
As per the British newspaper ‘The Guardian’, the researchers from the American University Stanford tested the antibodies of 3300 residents of the American county of Santa Clara.
It was found that the COVID19 antibodies were present in 4.16% of them. If the survey is combined with the total population, researchers estimate that 81,000 people in the county have been infected with the current pandemic virus. That is many times the total number of cases reported in the county.
Another study from the University of California, Los Angeles, found that 5.6 percent of the 863 people tested positive for the coronavirus.
On April 9, The Science Magazine reported that the research team of the University of Bonn gave the results of a survey conducted in the German town of Heinzburg. As per the reports, 500 people were tested and 14% of them were found to have antibodies to the coronavirus.
With the death toll in the town of 12,500 people, this ratio accounts for only 0.37% of all deaths.
Another similar survey in New York City found antibodies to the COVID19 in one in seven people; an estimated 2.7 million people have been infected in New York, reported by Live Science, a science news agency in New York.
According to Live Science, experts believe that these surveys were conducted on very few people and their chances of being right or wrong are very high. Therefore, it is believed that the actual number of infected patients is very high then the reports produced in the media. Similarly, reported deaths do not include those deaths that have not been diagnosed and have occurred at home or in nursing homes.
In response to these tests, the World Health Organization warned that the presence of coronavirus antibodies in someone’s blood is proof that they were infected with the pandemic COVID19 disease. But that does not guarantee that the person will not be re-infected.
“No one can say for sure that if a person has antibodies in their blood, they are completely safe and not re-infected with the coronavirus,” said Mike Ryan, executive editor of the World Health Organization’s emergency programs.
What are the antibodies?
According to the website of the Bio-Rad, Antibodies, also referred to as immunoglobulins are glycoproteins naturally produced in response to invading foreign particles (antigens) such as microorganisms and viruses. As such, they play a critical role in the immune system’s defense against infection and disease.
Each antibody can bind to only one specific antigen. The purpose of this binding is to help destroy the antigen. Some antibodies destroy antigens directly. Others make it easier for white blood cells to destroy the antigen.
This means that if a specific type of antibody is present in the body, then the body has already been attacked by related microorganisms.
Once healthy, these antibodies remain in the body for a few days and remain in the memory of the body’s immune system in the event of a recurrence of the same germs.
Medical experts are working to improve the immune system of COVID19 patients with these antibodies. This traditional procedure is called ‘peso immunization’.
