Highlights:
- Scientists find new way to predict COVID-19 vaccine’s efficacy
- Researchers from different universities and institute published a study on how to predict vaccine’s efficacy
The early immune response in a person who has been administered the COVID-19 vaccine can predict the level of protection he/ she will have to the virus over time, as per the analysis from the Australian mathematicians, clinicians, and scientists, and published the journal Nature Medicine.
The researchers from the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, the University of New South Wales’s Kirby Institute, and the University of Sydney have identified an “immune correlate” of vaccine protection. This has the potential to dramatically cut development times for new vaccines, by measuring the neutralising antibody levels as a “proxy” for the immune protection from the COVID-19.
Also Read: Covaxin Vs Covishield: All You Need To Know Before Getting The Vaccine
Dr Deborah Cromer of the Kirby Institute has said, “Neutralising antibodies are tiny Y-shaped proteins produced by our body in response to infection or vaccination.
“They bind to the virus, reducing its ability to infect”.
“While we have known for some time that neutralising antibodies are likely to be a critical part of our immune response to COVID-19, we haven’t known how much antibody you need for immunity.
“Our work is the strongest evidence to date to show that specific antibody levels translate to high levels of protection from disease,” Dr Cromer said.
The researchers analysed the data from 7 different COVID-19 vaccines to examine how the response measures soon after the vaccination correlated with protection. The researchers then used the statistical analysis to define the specific relationship between the immune response and the protection against the deadly virus.
Their analysis was remarkably accurate and was able to predict the efficacy of a new vaccine.
Dr Cromer said that their finding has the potential to change the way the COVID-19 vaccine trials will be conducted in the future.
Dr Cromer said, “Antibody immune levels are much easier to measure than directly measuring vaccine efficacy over time,” and added, “So, by measuring antibody levels across the range of new vaccine candidates during early phases of clinical trials, we can better determine whether a vaccine should be used to prevent COVID-19.”
Another added application, which could be very crucial, of their analysis is the ability to predict immunity over time. The researchers have predicted that the immunity to COVID-19 from vaccination will diminish significantly within a year, with the level of neutralising antibodies in the blood dropping over the first few months following infection or vaccination.
Dr David Khoury, also from the Kirby Institute, said, “Vaccination works very well to prevent both symptoms and severe disease in the short to medium term, but efficacy is predicted to decline over the first few months for most of these vaccines”.
Dr Khoury also said, “However, it is very important to understand the difference between immunity against infection and protection from developing severe disease. Our study found that a 6-fold lower level of antibodies is required to protect against severe disease. “So even though our analysis predicts that we will start losing immunity to a mild infection in the first year after vaccination, protection from severe infection should be long-lived.
- Scientists find new way to predict COVID-19 vaccine’s efficacy
- Researchers from different universities and institute published a study on how to predict vaccine’s efficacy
The early immune response in a person who has been administered the COVID-19 vaccine can predict the level of protection he/ she will have to the virus over time, as per the analysis from the Australian mathematicians, clinicians, and scientists, and published the journal Nature Medicine.
The researchers from the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, the University of New South Wales’s Kirby Institute, and the University of Sydney have identified an “immune correlate” of vaccine protection. This has the potential to dramatically cut development times for new vaccines, by measuring the neutralising antibody levels as a “proxy” for the immune protection from the COVID-19.
Dr Deborah Cromer of the Kirby Institute has said, “Neutralising antibodies are tiny Y-shaped proteins produced by our body in response to infection or vaccination.
“They bind to the virus, reducing its ability to infect”.
“While we have known for some time that neutralising antibodies are likely to be a critical part of our immune response to COVID-19, we haven’t known how much antibody you need for immunity.
“Our work is the strongest evidence to date to show that specific antibody levels translate to high levels of protection from disease,” Dr Cromer said.
The researchers analysed the data from 7 different COVID-19 vaccines to examine how the response measures soon after the vaccination correlated with protection. The researchers then used the statistical analysis to define the specific relationship between the immune response and the protection against the deadly virus.
Their analysis was remarkably accurate and was able to predict the efficacy of a new vaccine.
Dr Cromer said that their finding has the potential to change the way the COVID-19 vaccine trials will be conducted in the future.
Dr Cromer said, “Antibody immune levels are much easier to measure than directly measuring vaccine efficacy over time,” and added, “So, by measuring antibody levels across the range of new vaccine candidates during early phases of clinical trials, we can better determine whether a vaccine should be used to prevent COVID-19.”
Another added application, which could be very crucial, of their analysis is the ability to predict immunity over time. The researchers have predicted that the immunity to COVID-19 from vaccination will diminish significantly within a year, with the level of neutralising antibodies in the blood dropping over the first few months following infection or vaccination.
Dr David Khoury, also from the Kirby Institute, said, “Vaccination works very well to prevent both symptoms and severe disease in the short to medium term, but efficacy is predicted to decline over the first few months for most of these vaccines”.
Dr Khoury also said, “However, it is very important to understand the difference between immunity against infection and protection from developing severe disease. Our study found that a 6-fold lower level of antibodies is required to protect against severe disease. “So even though our analysis predicts that we will start losing immunity to a mild infection in the first year after vaccination, protection from severe infection should be long-lived.
“But ultimately, for optimal protection against moderate disease and transmission of COVID-19, these findings suggest we may be looking at annual vaccine boosters, just like what we have with the flu vaccine”.
The major challenge on the global level is the evolution of the COVID-19 and the emergence of its new variants, There has been a growing concern, based on laboratory studies, that antibodies developed against the dominant strains are less effective at neutralising these new variants of Coronavirus.
Professor Jamie Triccas of the University of Sydney’s Marie Bashir Institute and Faculty of Medicine and Health, said, “An added advantage of our work is that allows us to predict how protective an immune response will be against different variants.”
Prof. Triccas added, “This analysis shows a very good correlation between the immune response — which is very easy to test for and the efficacy of a vaccine in preventing infection, which is incredibly hard to test for.
“This means we can predict how protective an immune response will be against different variants, without having to determine efficacy against each variant in large and costly clinical trials.”
