Children's Antibody Responses to COVID-19 Are Greater Than Adults'

As per research conducted by scientists at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in collaborative efforts with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, babies and children who were infected in the public with SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, had relatively high levels of antibodies against the virus than adults.

According to the latest research, children who have been infected with SARS-CoV-2 exhibit high antibody responses.

Understanding SARS-CoV-2 antibody responses at different ages can help inform COVID-19 vaccine strategies and policies.

Children have the ability to recover faster from COVID-19

(Photo : Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

This report is based on samples obtained at enrolment from 682 children and adults in 175 Maryland households who took part in a neighborhood testing the statistical significance of SARS-CoV-2 infection and had not yet received a COVID-19 vaccination, as per ScienceDaily,

Participants' ages varied from 0 to 62, and enrollment samples were taken between November 2020 and March 2021.

At the time of enrolment, the researchers discovered evidence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, suggesting past infection with the virus, in 56 persons.

There were 15 children ages 0 to 4 years, including the smallest three months old, 13 children ages 5-17 years, and 28 adults ages 18 and older among the 56 persons having antibody evidence of past SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Immunoglobulins to something like a critical region on the virus's outer spike protein, known as the "receptor-binding domain" (RBD), were found at substantially greater levels in children than in adults: more than 13 times higher in children aged 0-4 and almost 9 times higher in children aged 5-17.

In addition, levels of SARS-CoV-2 autoantibodies, which may predict future immunity against acute COVID infections, were nearly twice as powerful in children ages 0-4 compared to adults.

"This study shows that indeed kids in their first several years of life can develop a strong immune reaction to SARS-CoV-2 infection, that in some cases outperform adult responses," says Ruth Karron, MD, lead investigator, and professor in the Department of International Health and director of the Johns Hopkins Vaccine Initiative at the Bloomberg School.

Karron as well as her colleagues designed the SARS-CoV-2 Epidemiology And Response in Children (SEARCh) potential residential home surveillance study to know and understand further about SARS-CoV-2 infection in kids under the age of five, a relatively underresearched population.

COVID-19 makes it somewhat anomalous

Children's hospitals throughout New York City had to pivot early last year to deal with a devastating COVID-19 epidemic, as per Nature.

According to Betsy Herold, a pediatric infectious-disease physician who directs a virology facility at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, everyone had to swiftly learn or semi-learn how to care for adults.

The reason for this was that, while hospitals throughout the city were overflowing with sick people, pediatric patient rooms were fairly quiet.

Children were somehow shielded from the worst impact of the disease.

According to data gathered by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from hospitals around the country, children under the age of 18 accounted for fewer than 2% of COVID-19 hospitalizations, a total of 3,649 minors between March 2020 and late August 2021.

Some children do become very ill, and over 420 have died in the United States, but the majority of individuals with severe disease are adults, a tendency that has been confirmed in many areas of the world.