The City of Vienna is supporting several MedUni Vienna projects relating to coronavirus through the "Medical-Scientific Fund of the Mayor of the Federal Capital Vienna". A new project to receive this funding is a study of SARS-CoV-2 immunity in schoolchildren.
The research project entitled "SARS-CoV-2 immunity in schoolchildren" is being conducted by project leader Zsolt Szépfalusi (Department of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine) together with the research group led by Judith Aberle (Center for Virology). The aim is to gain a better understanding of immunity following SARS-CoV-2 infection in children. The study included children and adolescents who were serologically diagnosed as having Covid-19 in a cross-sectional study of 2,069 schoolchildren from Vienna. The study will collect comprehensive data on different components of the immune response (virus neutralising antibodies, SARS-CoV-2 T cells) and their individual variation in children. The study results are particularly important for assessing immunity in the light of newly emerging coronavirus variants.