Pfizer vaccine antibody responses stronger in those infected with prior covid, also increases resistance to other coronaviruses.

in covid •  3 years ago 

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Several studies have shown that those who have been infected with covid tend to have a stronger antibody response to vaccination. This is compared to people who have no prior infection and get the jab. Further, even if your antibodies have begun to wear off from natural infection, your antibody response to vaccination continues to outpace those with no prior infection.

This study, which looks at the Pfizer vaccine in Italy, shows that this effect is amplified in people who had stronger covid symptoms.

Although not perfectly correlated, this makes intuitive sense as more symptoms are usually the result of more active virus in the body and a few of these symptoms such as aching muscles, fatigue etc. are the result of activation of the immune system.

For those who had infections that were moderate (as opposed to mild), the levels of antibodies are not only higher after vaccination, but the fading rate is much slower (the antibodies last longer.)

And for those who had mild or asymptomatic infections, the antibodies after vaccination were on average considerably lower.

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The study also examined the levels of neutralizing antibodies to other seasonal coronaviruses and found some surprising results. In-fact, the antibody responses to covid vaccination also increased antibodies to HKU1 and OC43. Killing two birds with one stone much?

Another interesting result, is that those who had an increase in their antibodies to the HKU1 cold coronavirus post covid vaccination also had weaker antibody responses to the other variants - Alpha and Beta. An explanation for this is that prior exposure to the cold virus is tailoring the immune system to respond to viruses it has seen in the past instead of going for a broader response. There is actually a technical name for this "original antigenic sin" (OAS) and it is the first time this phenomenon has been shown to happen with coronaviruses, even though it is a frequent phenomena with the flu.

Sadly, this study was conducted before the wide prevalence of the Delta variant and so we'll have to wait for further updates.

Link to study : https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.15.21262000v1.full.pdf

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