Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to support longitudinal studies to track (a) the durability of the covid-19 immune response and (b) the long term disease consequences in covid-19 patients.

A number of different studies are considering the durability of the COVID-19 immune response, by assessing antibody waning over time and whether previous infection protects against future infection. This includes UK Biobank, REACT-2 and the Public Health England SIREN study.

The National Health Service and the wider scientific community are currently working to better understand the disease course of COVID-19 infection, including the prevalence, severity and duration of symptoms, and how best to support recovery. The National Institute for Health Research and UK Research and Innovation have invested £8.4 million in the Post-HOSPitalisation COVID-19 study (PHOSP-COVID), led by Christopher Brightling at the University of Leicester. This study is one of the world’s largest comprehensive research studies into the long-term health impacts of COVID-19 on hospitalised patients.