Scientists in China, in a study with monkeys, have found that they were immune to the coronavirus if given a second exposure to it after the original infection.
The small study underscores that non-human primates, in this case using four rhesus macaques, could be a useful animal model to study COVID-19, because their symptoms are similar to those in humans.
To the authors, the results also indicate that reports of some COVID-19 survivors being “re-infected” a second time can be explained by issues with testing rather than a failure to develop immunity.
Chuan Qin, an experimental pathologist at the Institute of Laboratory Animal Sciences at the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, told The Scientist: “Our study found that neutralising antibodies are produced in the process of recovery after SARS-CoV-2 infection.