Antibody results remain low
Only 2.6% of Alicante population has 'immunity'
THE LATEST national seroprevalence testing for Covid19 antibodies has indicated that less than 3% of the population in the Valencia region has been infected.
The final round of the 4,286 tests carried out in the region, by the ministry for health and the Carlos III public health institute, showed a slight rise in infections but the results were a long way from so-called herd immunity (about 60%).
They found that while the first tests estimated 2.4% for Alicante province, 1.3% for Valencia and 2.5% for Castellón, the second and third rounds remained steady at 2.6% for Alicante, 2.1% for Valencia and 2.9% for Castellón.
The national results hardly varied between the three rounds, rising from 5% in the first to 5.2% for the second and third.
Anti-bodies question
A spokesman for the ministry for health revealed that nationwide a total of 14.4% of the coronavirus patients who were examined in the first round of tests ‘no longer had anti-bodies detectable six weeks later’.
However, doctor Marina Pollán, director of the national centre for epidemiology, stated ‘the fact that they lose antibodies does not mean that the individual is not immunised’.
She noted that these could be ‘re-stimulated’ by the body during any second contact with the virus.
The doctor gave the example of hepatitis, in which the ‘antibodies disappear but the cells that produce them have an immunological memory’.