For people who survived a previous encounter with covid-19, just one dose of an mRNA vaccine may be required for complete protection, suggests research released Wednesday. The findings add weight to the idea suggested by some experts that survivors should only receive one injection to help expand vaccine supply.
Researchers from Mount Sinai have been studying the ins and outs of immunity to the coronavirus since the start of the pandemic. For example, their previous work has suggested that natural immunity to infection is usually robust and lasts for at least six months in most survivors. However, it is still an area of active research, as well re-infection is possibleAnd many who survived covid-19 would be at greater risk of serious illness if they were unlikely to catch it and get sick again. Both doctors and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still recommend that anyone eligible for vaccination should get it, even if they’ve already passed covid-19.
While the rollout of vaccinations has been steadily improving since December last year, only about 19% of the US. have received at least one dose and less than 10% have been fully vaccinated. Hoping to speed up vaccination efforts, some scientists have done so argued that survivors of Covid-19 should be told to get just one dose of the comparable Moderna and Pfizer / BioNTech vaccines. YOUuntil recently they were the only vaccines available in the country. Still other experts have warned that we still don’t know if these people would be as fully protected as anyone on the standard two-dose course.
To help answer this question, the Mount Sinai researchers looked at 109 previously uninfected volunteers who were either fully vaccinated or survivors (confirmed by antibody tests) who had received only one dose of either mRNA vaccine at the time. . In another group of 231 people, they compared the level of reported side effects between survivors and uninfected people after vaccination.
The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that survivors who received a single dose had a similar and often greater antibody response to the coronavirus than those who were fully vaccinated. Survivors also tended to experience side effects such as infection site pain or fatigue more often after the first dose, compared to uninfected people after the first dose, but at levels similar to those seen in humans after taking the full two doses got. Since these side effects are usually a sign that the body’s immune system is learning to recognize the virus, that also suggests that survivors who get just one injection still get as much protection from covid-19 as anyone who gets two doses.
G / O Media can receive a commission
“For that reason, we believe that a single dose of vaccine is sufficient for people already infected with SARS-CoV-2 to achieve immunity,” said study author Viviana Simon, a professor in the departments of Microbiology and Medicine at Mount Sinai’s Icahn. School of Medicine, in one pronunciation released by the university.
The findings of the study were original released to the public early last month as a preliminary paper on the medRxiv website. At the time, they were remarkable enough for the director of the National Institutes of Health, Francis Collins to write about them. While Collins welcomed the study, which was funded by the NIH, he also pointed out that it would be necessary to see other studies that support the same conclusion before there is likely to be an official change in the Food and Drug Administration’s guidelines of CDC would be. The new study doesn’t weighing in on Johnson & Johnson’s one-time vaccine that uses a different technology to boost covid-19 immunity, and what it could mean for covid-19 survivors
If that data does appear, it could very well make a major contribution to expanding our vaccine offering. No one really knows for sure, but somewhere between 20% and 30% of the country is already had covid-19. And while access to the vaccine is getting better, any little boost in speed would help immensely.