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Hayat Mushcab,1 Jaffar A Al-Tawfiq,2â 4 Amani Babgi,5 Mohammed Ghamdi,6 Abdulrazack Amir,7 Salwa S Sheikh,8 Adel Darwisheh,9 Abrar AlObaid,9 Emad Masuadi,10 Areej AlFattani,11 Saeed Qahtani,12 Ahmed Al Sagheir1 1Research Office, Johns Hopkins Aramco Healthcare, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia; 2Specialty Internal Medicine and Quality and Patient Safety Departments, Johns Hopkins Aramco Healthcare, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia; 3Infectious Disease Division, Department of Medicine, Indiana University School of Medicine, IN, Indiana, USA; 4Infectious Disease Division, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA; 5Nursing Department, Johns Hopkins Aramco Healthcare, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia; 6Population Health Department, Johns Hopkins Aramco Healthcare, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia; 7Office of Academic Affairs, Johns Hopkins Aramco Healthcare, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia; 8Pathology Department, Johns Hopkins Aramco Healthcare, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia; 9Laboratory Services Department, Johns Hopkins Aramco Healthcare, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia; 10Medical Education Department, College of Medicine, King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; 11Biostatistics and Epidemiology Department, King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; 12Wellness Institute, Johns Hopkins Aramco Healthcare, Dhahran, Saudi ArabiaCorrespondence: Hayat Mushcab, Research Office, Johns Hopkins Aramco Healthcare, Dhahran, 31311, Saudi Arabia, Email hayat.almushcab@jhah.comBackground: The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) caused the latest pandemic and the most significant challenge in public health worldwide. Studying the longevity of naturally developed antibodies is highly important clinically and epidemiologically. This paper assesses the longevity of antibodies developed against nucleocapsid protein amongst our health-care workers.Methods: This longitudinal cohort study was conducted at a tertiary hospital, Saudi Arabia. Anti-SARSsCoV-2 antibodies were tested among health-care workers at three-point intervals (baseline, eight weeks, and 16 weeks).Results: Of the 648 participants, 112 (17.2%) tested positive for Coronavirus (COVID-19) by PCR before the study. Of all participants, 87 (13.4%) tested positive for anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, including 17 (2.6%) participants who never tested positive for COVID-19 using rt-PCR. Out of the 87 positive IgG participants at baseline, only 12 (13.7%) had remained positive for anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies by the end of the study. The IgG titer showed a significant reduction in values over time, where the median time for the confirmed positive rt-PCR subgroup from infection to the last positive antibody test was 70 (95% CI: 33.4â 106.5) days.Conclusion: Health-care workers are at high risk of exposure to the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and contracting an asymptomatic infection is not unlikely. Developing and sustaining natural immunity differs from one person to another, while the rate of positive IgG anti-SARS-CoV-2 wanes over time.Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT04469647, July 14, 2020.Keywords: antibodies, longevity, COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, healthcare workers, HCW |
