ArticleScientific reports2022
Cross-reactive immunity against SARS-CoV-2 N protein in Central and West Africa precedes the COVID-19 pandemic.
Article in Scientific reports, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 31 citations in OpenAlex.
- Reduced COVID-19 severity in Africa: a systematic review of host genetic and immunological responses to SARS-CoV-2 infection.Frontiers in immunology · 2026Pooled it
- Seroprevalence of endemic and emergent coronaviruses among SARS-COV-2 patients and healthcare workers in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire.BMC infectious diseases · 2026Article
- Article
- SARS-CoV-2 Serosurveillance Reveals Pre-pandemic Cross-Reactivity and Pandemic Seroprevalence Trends in Senegal.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2025Article
- Compartmentalised mucosal and blood immunity to SARS-CoV-2 is associated with high seroprevalence before the Delta wave in Africa.Communications medicine · 2025Article
- Longitudinal humoral immunity against SARS-CoV-2 Spike following infection in individuals from Cameroon.Virology · 2025Article
- Pre-pandemic cross-reactive antibody and cellular responses against SARS-CoV-2 among female sex workers in Dakar, Senegal.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- High SARS-CoV-2 incidence and asymptomatic fraction during Delta and Omicron BA.1 waves in The Gambia.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Neutralizing immunity against coronaviruses in Tanzanian health care workers.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Article
- High frequencies of alpha common cold coronavirus/SARS-CoV-2 cross-reactive functional CD4Frontiers in immunology · 2024Article
- Article
- Comparative evaluation of SARS-CoV-2 serological tests shows significant variability in performance across different years of infection and between the tests.Journal of clinical virology plus · 2023Article
- High SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence in Lagos, Nigeria with robust antibody and cellular immune responses.Journal of clinical virology plus · 2023Article
- The COVID-19 pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa: The significance of presumed immune sufficiency.African journal of laboratory medicine · 2023Review
- Pre-pandemic SARS-CoV-2-specific IFN-γ and antibody responses were low in Ugandan samples and significantly reduced in HIV-positive specimens.Frontiers in immunology · 2023Article
- Pre-Pandemic Cross-Reactive Immunity against SARS-CoV-2 among Central and West African Populations.Viruses · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
23 authors at 10 institutions in 6 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Early predictions forecasted large numbers of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) cases and associated deaths in Africa. To date, Africa has been relatively spared. Various hypotheses were postulated to explain the lower than anticipated impact on public health in Africa. However, the contribution of pre-existing immunity is yet to be investigated. In this study, the presence of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 spike (S) and nucleocapsid (N) proteins in pre-pandemic samples from Africa, Europe, South and North America was examined by ELISA. The protective efficacy of N specific antibodies isolated from Central African donors was tested by in vitro neutralization and in a mouse model of SARS-CoV-2 infection. Antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 S and N proteins were rare in all populations except in Gabon and Senegal where N specific antibodies were prevalent. However, these antibodies failed to neutralize the virus either in vitro or in vivo. Overall, this study indicates that cross-reactive immunity against SARS-CoV-2 N protein was present in Africa prior to the pandemic. However, this pre-existing humoral immunity does not impact viral fitness in rodents suggesting that other human immune defense mechanisms could be involved. In Africa, seroprevalence studies using the N protein are over-estimating SARS-CoV-2 circulation.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.