There is currently no evidence that people who have recovered from COVID-19 and have antibodies are protected from reinfection, the World Health Organization experts said.

Many countries are now discussing the possibility of introducing the so-called passport of immunity, thanks to which people who have recovered can travel freely or return to work, as it is considered that such people cannot re-get infected.

But experts noted that the effectiveness of protection against SARS-CoV-2 thanks to antibodies has not yet been established by any scientific research.

There is currently no evidence that people who have recovered from COVID-19 and have antibodies are protected from a second infection.

In addition, it is necessary to take into account that not all patients who develop a sufficiently strong immune response, and some of those who have very low levels of neutralizing antibodies in their blood ‘have very low levels of neutralizing antibodies in their blood.’

According to WHO experts, at this stage of the pandemic, in order to guarantee that there is no risk of re-infection, there is insufficient data on how strong the antibodies provide immunity.

Moreover, according to experts, the use of such ‘passports’ or certificates can create the illusion of security among their owners and they will no longer comply with safety recommendations, which will further increase the risk of re-infection and the spread of the disease.

The discussion on the introduction of such documents is also premature due to the unreliability of the tests themselves, experts noted.

“Laboratory tests that detect antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 in people, including rapid immunodiagnostic tests, need further validation to determine their accuracy and reliability. Inaccurate immunodiagnostic tests may falsely categorize people in two ways. The first is that they may falsely label people who have been infected as negative, and the second is that people who have not been infected are falsely labelled as positive. Both errors have serious consequences and will affect control efforts,” the statement said.

In addition, these tests do not distinguish antibodies to the new coronavirus from antibodies of other known human coronaviruses, four of which are widespread in the population and cause mild colds. Two more are responsible for SARS - Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, and MERS - Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome.