Madrid, the first autonomy to measure protection against Covid: nine out of ten have antibodies and cellular memory

• Health This is how your immune system works and how you can boost it

• COVID-19 Madrid will be the first autonomy to measure the memory of T cells against Covid

After seven waves and several vaccination campaigns, the majority of Madrid residents have developed a strong shield against Covid-19.

And it has done it in two ways: by

.

This follows from the seroprevalence study carried out by the Community of Madrid and to which EL MUNDO has had access.

Elena Andradas, Director of Public Health of the Community of Madrid, explains: "

. This is important because it allows us to make informed public health decisions."

Among the main conclusions, it stands out that

;

99.4% of Madrid residents who have had the Covid infection have antibodies;

and 87.6% have a cellular immune response.

All this translates into the fact that at least nine out of ten vaccinated people from Madrid have developed immunity against the virus, both humoral (antibodies produced by B lymphocytes) and cellular (T lymphocytes).

"This helps us to recommend vaccination strategies adjusted to certain age groups," says Andradas.

Thus, in the first week of the new anti-Covid campaign

through the Primary Care Residence Care Units, SUMMA 112 and concerted and private residence groups, according to the Ministry .

In a pioneering way, the region launched the VI Seroepidemiological Surveillance Survey in April and

.

Until now, the little or much that was known about the footprint that the virus had left in the Spanish is in the ENE-Covid seroprevalence work of Health by the Carlos III Health Institute, but the latest results correspond to December 2020 , and the most recent from January 2022 only cover those over 65 years of age.

In them, the effect of the booster dose against omicron in the middle of the sixth wave was measured.

It should be remembered that almost two million infected have been officially registered in the Community of Madrid (1,925,334 until last Friday according to Health) and 92.7% of those over 12 years of age and 42, 5% of the pediatric population between five and 11 years.

"Practically 60% have a booster dose, so that, at the moment, the majority of the population in the Community of Madrid is protected."

By age groups, more than 90% of those over 60 have the reinforcement pattern, although these figures drop 20 points when we talk about the age groups of 50 years (76%), 40 (61.21%), 30 (48.77%) and 20 (43.50%) and 18-19 (26.08%).

80.5% of children between two and five years have shown antibodies against the virus

Elena Andradas

The seroprevalence study, in particular, has concluded that when people have received

and 89.7% have a cellular immune response.

Even in individuals immunized by needle prick,

and 90.2% maintain the cellular immune response.

Andradas highlights that, in addition, they have found interesting data on how the pandemic has been evolving these months.

"We have crossed the data from the registries of infected with those of vaccinated and we have obtained interesting results. Of the sample,

And this means?

That there are many who have passed Covid with mild or asymptomatic symptoms.

"In the range of children

," explains the director of Public Health, adding that "all this is due to exposure natural to the virus.

It must be remembered that this group of minors

.

For the Director of Public Health, to be able to conclude that "practically 90% of the population has a long-lasting cellular immune response, for at least 10 months, is to be able to say that we have a high degree of protection in the Community of Madrid".

In summary, the prevalence of combined humoral and cellular immunity is high throughout the region, and from 10 years of age it is greater than 80% in all age groups.

Why is it a solid and exhaustive work?

One of the keys to the robustness of the results obtained lies in the volume and characteristics of the samples analysed.

"Individuals who were going to undergo the test by medical prescription have been selected in an anonymized way and have provided their data. We have complied with an adjusted demographic representation," says Andradas.

Another of the characteristics of the study is the use of a new molecular amplification technique, which has been endorsed by the Immunology services of the University Hospitals of La Paz and La Princesa and the advice of the researcher Margarita del Val.

"In direct real-time RT-PCR we detected CXCL10 mRNA produced by monocytes in response to interferon gamma secreted by antigen-specific T lymphocytes circulating in the blood," Marta Pérez, a pharmaceutical specialist in Microbiology and Parasitology at the Laboratory, explained in March. Regional Public Health.

For this reason, Andradas values ​​the work of the study whose methodology has not yet been replicated in any community.

"Some experience has been carried out in Navarra and the Valencian Community, but not with the same number of people or the same type of search for immunity."

The Navarro Health Service-Osasunbidea used a sample of 1,461 people, who underwent a blood draw between April 26 and June 3.

In them, only two types of antibodies were examined: those of the antiprotein N of the nucleocapsid (immunity by natural exposure) and antiprotein S of the spike (from the immune response to vaccination and after natural exposure).

The results indicate that 97.4% of the Navarrese population over 5 years of age have antibodies against Covid-19, either because they have been vaccinated or because they have had the infection.

For its part, the ProVaVac study concludes that 95% of the population of the Valencian Community has antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 and that around 41% have been infected with the virus.

In this case, the sample was a thousand citizens.

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