There would be new data to understand when to do the recall of the vaccine against Covid-19
Preliminary research in Israel revealed a low level of neutralizing antibodies in vaccinated people who then became infected. Could it prove to be a useful biomarker
Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay Can the level of neutralizing antibodies predict the likelihood of vaccinated people becoming infected with Sars-Cov-2 and / or getting Covid-19? This is what the scientific community is trying to find out after studies have shown that fully vaccinated people are less likely to be infected with the coronavirus when they maintain higher levels of antibodies. The latest Israeli research published in the New England Journal of Medicine also goes in this direction. Although the numbers are small enough, experts, in addition to confirming the very high protection of the Pfizer vaccine, believe they have identified a type of neutralizing antibodies that could be a good biomarker for predicting when a new booster is appropriate.The study
The study involved 1,497 fully vaccinated healthcare workers from the Sheba Medical Center near Tel Aviv, who regularly underwent a molecular test for coronavirus (Rt- Pcr). During this time, 39 of them tested positive. Infected therefore, but in all cases either there were no symptoms or the Covid-19 disease manifested itself in a mild form (19% still had some aftermath up to 6 weeks after diagnosis). 85% of infections resulted from the alpha variant.These data, once again, confirm that, although rarely, vaccinated people can become infected, but that the protection conferred by the mRna vaccine is in against the infection that even more against the Covid-19 disease is very high.
A potential biomarker?
The researchers did not stop there, but went to measure the levels of different types of antibodies in the blood of the healthcare professionals involved to see if there were any differences between those who had been infected and those who were not. It emerged that the people who contracted Sars-Cov-2 had lower neutralizing antibody levels than their counterpart.In light of these results, scientists believe they have identified a potential good biomarker in the blood that could in future allow to predict the probability of infection and therefore to plan a new vaccine booster.
The limitations
The research - according to the authors themselves - must necessarily be confirmed by further studies, that exceed its limits. The numbers, in fact, are a bit small to draw solid conclusions and the population sample too homogeneous (health workers on average young and healthy).Furthermore, and this is the main problem, the scientists have not succeeded to calculate statistically significant differences in neutralizing antibody levels and therefore to identify a protection threshold.
Concluding note of the study: in 74% of registered cases of infection, the low antibody titer was combined with a 'high viral load, which could indicate (but it was not experimentally verified in this work because people who tested positive were immediately isolated) that even vaccinated, when they become infected, they can spread the virus. In short, at least indoors we should all continue to wear masks and keep our distance.
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Topics
Coronavirus Vaccine coronavirus Pfizer vaccine BioNTech globalData.fldTopic = "Coronavirus, Coronavirus vaccine, Pfizer BioNTech vaccine "
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