Researchers in Australia said Tuesday they had mapped the body's immune response to the novel coronavirus, in a potential breakthrough in the fight against the global killer.
A team of scientists were able to test blood samples from a patient who had contracted COVID-19 and was hospitalised with moderate symptoms.
Authors of the study, published in the journal Nature Medicine, said it was the first time experts had mapped the body's general immune response to the new disease.
"We saw a really robust immune response that preceded clinical recovery," Katherine Kedzierska, from the University of Melbourne's Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, told AFP.
"We noted an immune response but she was visually still unwell, and three days later the patient recovered."