Those who already had COVID-19 get protection with just one dose: study provided more evidence in favor

Getting the vaccine is one of the many things you can do to protect yourself and others from COVID-19. Less than a year after the declaration of a pandemic by the World Health Organization Several vaccines have already been shown to be effective and safe in preventing coronavirus infection.

For many of these vaccines to have the desired effect, two doses are required according to clinical trials. But the scientific investigation continued and now a new study in the United States has provided more evidence showing that people who had already had the coronavirus before vaccination achieve protection with a single dose.

Last week, he was spreading a technical report with the Sputnik V vaccine in Argentina with results in the same direction. In FebruaryIn France, it was also recommended to give a single dose of COVID-19 vaccines to those who had already been infected.

The new study was carried out by teams of German microbiologist Viviana Simon, who works at the Icahn School of Medicine in Mount Sinai, United States, with the group of Florian Krammer. They received funding from the National Institute of Infectious Diseases and Allergies, philanthropic organizations and private donations to do the work published in the magazine. The New England Journal of Medicine.

The study included 110 people who received the COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna which require two doses and who had previously shown great efficacy in preventing infections in people with no history of illness. “We wonder what the response would be to the first dose of the vaccine in people with previous COVID-19,” the researchers said in the article. They wanted to know if the antibody level in 110 participants was different if they had already had the infection or not.

They found that the group who had previously had the infection developed antibodies within days of the first dose of the vaccine at a rate 10 to 20 times higher than those who were not infected. With the second dose, the rate of protection was more than 10 times higher in those who had already been infected before vaccination compared to those who had not.

In Argentina, last week too the results of a work have been disseminated produced by researchers from the Leloir Institute Foundation and Conicet. He focused on the Sputnik V vaccine, developed by the Gamaleya Institute in Russia, which is applied in two doses to achieve adequate protection against coronavirus infection.

The work was carried out with health personnel from public hospitals in the province of Buenos Aires, and it showed for the first time that with a single dose of Sputnik V, protection is already obtained in people who had had the disease. coronavirus before vaccination. The book was published by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation of the Nation. In the official statement on the job, it was argued that the data obtained in the study “They suggest reviewing the vaccination schedule for people who have previously been exposed to SARS-CoV-2.”

However, of the Health portfolio, through the intermediary of the Presidency of the Nation, it was specified the same day that this is only a “technical report.” Very important from a scientific point of view. It is not being evaluated at the Ministry of Health of the Nation not to give the second dose of Sputnik V to people who had COVID-19 ”.

The study was carried out on 142 volunteer health workers from seven public centers in the province of Buenos Aires, 22 of whom had previously been infected with the new coronavirus. They are between 18 and 59 years old.

As told Infobae, Jorge geffner, Immunology researcher of Conicet and one of those who did the work on Sputnik V, “First, a blood sample was taken from the volunteers to measure the antibodies before they received the Sputnik V vaccine. they had been infected with the coronavirus. Then the first dose of the vaccine was applied. On day 21, a blood sample was taken to see the level of antibodies they had already developed ”.

After testing for the antibodies, the volunteers received the second dose. At 40 days of age, he drew blood again to test the level of antibodies against the virus for the third time. “100% of those vaccinated were protected against the coronavirus, and this result is a reproduction of what the Gamaleya Institute had already shown,” Geffner said. “But the novelty is that the amount of antibodies was 8 times higher in people who had already been infected before vaccination compared to volunteers who had not been infected before being vaccinated ”, projection. Based on technical work on the Sputnik V vaccine in the province of Buenos Aires, scientist Andrea Gamarnik argues that data has been provided for better decision making.

In February, French health authorities had advised to apply a “single dose” of the coronavirus vaccine to people already with the disease, and they became the first country to make the recommendation. Patients who had Covid-19 “developed immunological memory after infection. The single dose of the vaccine will therefore play a reminder role, ”proposed the High Authority for Health (HAS), in a recommendation which has not yet received the approval of the Government. HAS also recommends that the injection be done between three and six months after having had Covid-19.

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