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Corona variant Omikron: Those who have recovered benefit greatly from a vaccination

2022-01-01T11:47:39.667Z


Double vaccinated or recovered: Neither of these offers optimal protection against Omikron. According to a current study, however, both groups can strengthen their immune defense with another vaccination against corona.


Enlarge image

On December 28th, people are waiting for a vaccination in the Fan Hall North of the Fritz Walter Stadium in Kaiserslautern

Photo: Uwe Anspach / dpa

The human immune system has numerous protective mechanisms against intruders.

The fast task force includes, among other things, the antibodies.

For example, they can intercept viruses such as Sars-CoV-2 before they can penetrate a cell.

At best, they neutralize attackers before they begin to reproduce and cause damage.

With so-called sterile immunity, contact with a pathogen prevents not only the disease, but also the infection itself and the transmission of the pathogen - thanks to the antibodies.

Researchers report in the journal "Nature" how well antibodies in the blood of various people were able to switch off the omicron variant.

They tested samples from different groups:

  • People who have been vaccinated twice with Biontech or twice with Moderna;

  • those who have already been boosted with an mRNA vaccine (i.e. those who have been vaccinated three times);

  • Convalescent without vaccination;

  • Recovered who had received two or three mRNA vaccinations.

It turned out that those who only recovered or had been vaccinated twice, their antibody activity against Omikron was mostly barely measurable.

But in those who had already encountered the coronavirus three or four times - through vaccination or infection - the neutralizing activity of the antibodies was still present.

However, it was still significantly lower than against previous virus variants.

"The data indicate that those who have recovered benefit greatly from the vaccination," writes Florian Krammer's team from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, USA, in "Nature".

Earlier studies by other researchers had shown that a booster vaccination significantly increases the protection of those previously twice vaccinated against Omikron.

The immune system remembers

In the current study, the team also looked at how well the antibodies recognized certain regions of Omikron's spike protein.

The antibodies couple to it, technically they "bind".

If that works well, it is an indication that the slower, but also longer-lasting immune response, which is based among other things on so-called B and T cells, is still well prepared.

These B and T cells cannot fight invading viruses as quickly as antibodies can.

That means: They do not protect against infection, you may develop some symptoms of the disease.

But this part of the immune response helps prevent serious illness.

The researchers therefore examined how well antibodies from the various samples bound to the original Sars-CoV-2 virus, the beta variant and to Omikron.

Overall, this binding was significantly less disturbed than the neutralizing activity.

This gives hope that the protection against serious illness is still relatively good.

Still, the team concludes that "our data joins the growing body of evidence that Omicron-specific vaccines are urgently needed."

wbr

Source: spiegel

All tech articles on 2022-01-01

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