Primary, recall, and decay dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 vaccine antibody responses.
https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.1c03972
Commentary
There have been published studies showing the efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccine. In this study, the immunity of people who have been previously infected with SARS-CoV-2 was investigated.
Studies of two SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines have shown that, at least in the short term, symptomatic treatment provides about 95% immune protection, but how the antibody levels elicited by the vaccine compare quantitatively with the broad spectrum elicited by natural SARS-CoV-2 infection is not clear. It is unclear how the vaccine induced antibody levels compare quantitatively with the broad spectrum induced by natural SARS-CoV-2 infection. Nothing is known about this.
Therefore, the relative stability of vaccine-induced and infection-induced antibody levels in people with and without prior viral infection was investigated in a longitudinal evaluation of vaccinees with and without SARS-CoV-2 infection using a quantitative enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for anti-RBD antibodies.
Individuals with SARS-CoV-2-naïve achieved levels similar to mild natural infection after the first vaccination, and levels similar to severe natural infection after the second dose. In individuals with a history of infection, regardless of severity, levels were shown to increase to the upper limit of severe natural infection after a single dose, with no further increase after the second dose.
Evaluation of antiviral neutralization using the spike pseudovirus assay showed that virus-naïve vaccinees did not develop physiological neutralizing efficacy until the second dose, while those with a history of infection showed the greatest neutralization after one dose.
And antibodies acquired by vaccination and natural immunity disappeared as well, resulting in an average loss of about 90% within 90 days.
Based on these results, it is necessary to administer the vaccination to people with a history of infection, but there is no change in immune function with either a single or two doses. And there was no significant difference in the duration of antibody production by either vaccination or natural infection in both cases.
