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Corona: "Hybrid immunity" - Researcher explains why the interaction with vaccination is crucial

2022-03-25T11:05:34.979Z


Corona: "Hybrid immunity" - Researcher explains why the interaction with vaccination is crucial Created: 03/25/2022, 11:53 am By: Franziska Schwarz A vaccination against and recovery from Corona (symbol image) form a special protection against the pathogen. © Everett Collection/Imago Especially in the fourth wave, many vaccinated people also get infected with Corona. A molecular biologist expl


Corona: "Hybrid immunity" - Researcher explains why the interaction with vaccination is crucial

Created: 03/25/2022, 11:53 am

By: Franziska Schwarz

A vaccination against and recovery from Corona (symbol image) form a special protection against the pathogen.

© Everett Collection/Imago

Especially in the fourth wave, many vaccinated people also get infected with Corona.

A molecular biologist explains what then happens in her body.

Cologne – The number of corona infections in Germany has reached a high. Many vaccinated people are also caught in the fourth wave.

Lauterbach sees a “sad autumn” without compulsory corona vaccination.

But what exactly happens in the body of people who have had both a vaccination and an infection?

This case is called “hybrid immunization” or, to put it bluntly: “mixed protection” against the pathogen.

Emanuel Wyler explained the principle in an interview with

Deutschlandfunk

(Cologne).

The molecular biologist also researches Corona at the Max Delbrück Center in Berlin.

Wyler pointed out that the human immune system is not the same everywhere in the body.

For example, there is “local immunity” in the throat and nose.

A vaccine dose that is injected into the upper arm does not activate it, according to Wyler in the Deutschlandfunk interview - but: "It was actually surprising last year when you saw that these mRNA vaccines also boosted local immunity in the Can stimulate the nose and throat.” The mRNA vaccines against Covid-19 include those from Biontech or Moderna.

"Hybrid immunity" against corona is only possible in combination with vaccination

Then Wyler went into the scenario that no one would want: to be among those who drive up the number of corona infections despite the prick.

According to him, however, local immunity is “very well stimulated” by this case because the associated infection in the nose (the novel coronavirus Sars-CoV-2 spreads via the respiratory tract) “prepares” the local immune system there.

"That means I can generate this immunity on the mucous membranes, which could then protect me from infection, but at the same time I have ensured through the vaccine that I am protected to a certain percentage from a serious illness?" asked

Deutschlandfunk

journalist Kathrin Boldly after.

"Exactly," was Wyler's reply.

Every vaccinated person develops an “immune memory” that is reactivated three to four days after a corona infection and produces antibodies again.

Severe courses of the disease or long-term consequences such as "Long Covid" could be avoided in this way.

However, Wyler qualified that the immune memory decreases over months and years.

“In theory” it would therefore be best to get infected around six months after the last vaccination, since it was still “very strong” at that point.

Vaccinated and recovered: Immunologist Carsten Watzl on "hybrid immunity"

The immunologist Carsten Watzl also spoke to the media about “hybrid immunity” in January.

His reason at the time was the shortening of the convalescent status.

Watzl did not believe that the situation had changed significantly as a result of the corona mutation Omicron, and that those who had recovered and those who had been vaccinated should therefore be treated equally.

Watzl did not want his statements to be understood as a plea against vaccination: After an infection, it is very advisable to be vaccinated anyway.

The hybrid immunity is “the best protection that science currently knows,” the immunologist told the dpa news agency at the time.

(frs with dpa material)

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2022-03-25

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