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October 4, 2021 – Antibody levels could decrease after 7 months for people who received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, according to a new study posted on the bioRxiv preprint server.
In the study, which has not yet been peer reviewed or officially published in a medical journal,
the researchers analyzed blood samples from 46 healthy young and middle-aged adults after receiving two doses and then 6 months after the second dose.
“Our study shows that vaccination with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine induces high levels of neutralizing antibodies against the original vaccine strain, but these levels decline almost 10-fold in 7 months,” the researchers told Reuters.
In about half of adults, neutralizing antibodies were undetectable 6 months after the second dose, especially against coronavirus variants such as Delta, Beta, and Mu.
Neutralizing antibodies are only part of the body’s immune defense against the virus, Reuters noted, but they are still “critically important” for protecting against coronavirus infections.
“These results suggest that administration of a booster dose approximately 6 to 7 months after the initial vaccination is likely to improve protection,” wrote the study authors.
BioNTech said a new vaccine formulation will likely be needed by mid-2022 to protect against future mutations in the virus, according to the Financial Time.
“This year, [a different vaccine] is completely unnecessary, but by the middle of next year the situation could be different, ”said Ugur Sahin, MD, co-founder and CEO of BioNTech.
The current variants, namely the Delta variant, are more contagious than the original coronavirus strain but not different enough to escape current vaccines, he said. But new strains can escape boosters.
“This virus will stay and the virus will adapt more,” Sahin said. “It’s an ongoing evolution, and this evolution is only just beginning.”
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