Journal
EMERGING MICROBES & INFECTIONS
Volume 9, Issue 1, Pages 1664-1670Publisher
TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD
DOI: 10.1080/22221751.2020.1791738
Keywords
COVID19; SARS-CoV-2; neutralizing antibody; disease severity; ICU patient
Categories
Funding
- Theme-Based Research Scheme of the Hong Kong Research Grants Council [T11-706/18-N]
- University Development Fund
- Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine Matching Fund from HKU
- Shaw Foundation Hong Kong
- Respiratory Viral Research Foundation Limited
- Hui Hoy and Chow Sin Lan Charity Fund Limited
- Chan Yin Chuen Memorial Charitable Foundation
- Hong Kong Hainan Commercial Association South China Microbiology Research Fund
- Jessie & George Ho Charitable Foundation
- Perfect Shape Medical Limited
- Health and Medical Research Fund [COVID190121, CPVOD1901123]
- Food and Health Bureau, The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region
- National Program on Key Research Project of China [2020YFA0707500, 2020YFA0707504]
- Consultancy Service for Enhancing Laboratory Surveillance of Emerging Infectious Diseases and Research Capability on Antimicrobial Resistance for Department of Health of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government
- Theme-Based Research Scheme of the Research Grants Council, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region [T11/707/15]
- Sanming Project of Medicine in Shenzhen, China [SZSM201911014]
- High Level-Hospital Program, Health Commission of Guangdong Province, China
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has a wide spectrum of disease severity from mild upper respiratory symptoms to respiratory failure. The role of neutralizing antibody (NAb) response in disease progression remains elusive. This study determined the seroprevalence of 733 non-COVID-19 individuals from April 2018 to February 2020 in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and compared the neutralizing antibody (NAb) responses of eight COVID-19 patients admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) with those of 42 patients not admitted to the ICU. We found that NAb against SARS-CoV-2 was not detectable in any of the anonymous serum specimens from the 733 non-COVID-19 individuals. The peak serum geometric mean NAb titer was significantly higher among the eight ICU patients than the 42 non-ICU patients (7280 [95% confidence interval (CI) 1468-36099]) vs (671 [95% CI, 368-1223]). Furthermore, NAb titer increased significantly at earlier infection stages among ICU patients than among non-ICU patients. The median number of days to reach the peak Nab titers after symptoms onset was shorter among the ICU patients (17.6) than that of the non-ICU patients (20.1). Multivariate analysis showed that oxygen requirement and fever during admission were the only clinical factors independently associated with higher NAb titers. Our data suggested that SARS-CoV-2 was unlikely to have silently spread before the COVID-19 emergence in Hong Kong. ICU patients had an accelerated and augmented NAb response compared to non-ICU patients, which was associated with disease severity. Further studies are required to understand the relationship between high NAb response and disease severity.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available