As a result of a vaccine found by UK research, they are vulnerable to Covid variants

According to a new study in the UK, people who have received a shot of the Covid-19 vaccine and have never been infected with the virus may be very vulnerable to new variants.

Researchers at Imperial College London, Queen Mary University and London College have studied immune responses among health workers who received a shot of the BioNTech / Pfizer vaccine.

Scientists previously found that Covid-19 was shown to be unpolluted by people very low levels of neutralizing antibodies Against the original strain in Wuhan, the B.1.1.7 variant first identified in Kent and the B.1.351 in South Africa.

In contrast, those who previously had a mild or asymptomatic infection and then received a single dose appear to have greatly improved protection against B.1.1.7 and B.1.351, showing high neutralizing antibodies and a strong T cell response. past infection.

A previously uncontaminated dose “seems very weak, especially against new variants,” said Danny Altmann, an Imperial immunology professor. “Our message would stay there until you get your second dose.”

But, Altmann added, with a single shot of the vaccine, the previous infection caused a “wonderful reaction.” “Pre-infection saves the response to variants,” he said.

The Imperial paper was published shortly after the first detailed study of the “vaccine failure” in the UK, commissioned by the government’s Scientific Advisory Group on Emergencies (Sage) that more than 500 elderly people developed Covid-19 symptoms. were vaccinated and hospitalized for at least three weeks, 113 of whom died later.

Sage researchThe Isaric Coronavirus Clinical Characterization Consortium conducted a study of 52,280 patients since the UK began vaccination distribution on 8 December.

More than three weeks ago they were vaccinated and the patients who needed to benefit from immune protection against Covid-19 were 1 percent of the hospitalized sample. About one-fifth of that group died as a result of the disease.

Professor Calum Semple of the University of Liverpool in Isaric said: “These are real data that show that vaccines work, but it is not unexpected that they also show the failure of the vaccine, especially among vulnerable elderly populations.”

He added that the absolute death toll was thus “very small” compared to the total population included.

The researchers found that the overall findings greatly reduce the risk of hospitalization and death from vaccines, consistent with the results of clinical trials, although their research design does not allow them to calculate the overall vaccine efficacy figure.

It was published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control a detailed controlled case study this week 417 patients from 24 hospitals found that BioNTech / Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were 94 percent effective in preventing two hospitalizations after two doses and 64 percent after a single dose. Most in the Isaric study in the UK received only the first dose of the Pfizer or Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine.

The CDC is also doing it a broader survey Covid-19 in the U.S. is calling it a “vaccine progress case”. As of April 20, it had received 7,157 infections among people who were fully vaccinated, including 498 hospitalizations and 88 deaths.

“Advances in reported vaccine cases will account for the minimum number,” the CDC said, because the data is incomplete and subject to new volunteers. “Vaccines are not 100 percent effective in preventing disease. A small percentage of people who are fully vaccinated will still be sick, hospitalized, or die from Covid-19.”

Semple made the same point about Isaric’s research. “We think it’s a story about vaccine success, but vaccine data is suspected within a wider society,” he said, and the study responded to the feeling that “some are looking hard enough at vaccine failure”. .

Dr. Annemarie Docherty of the University of Edinburgh, co-author of the Isaric study, said: “We are talking about statistics, but if your grandmother was vaccinated and later died with Covid, it is a personal tragedy.”