Third injection of COVID boosts immunity – Israeli peer-reviewed study



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Taking a third dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine boosts the immunity of recipients more than ten times compared to those who received only two doses of the vaccine more than five months previously, according to a report released Wednesday evening by Israeli researchers in the New England Journal of Medicine.
A version of the study had already been published and reported, albeit not peer reviewed, on the online research center MedRxiv earlier this month.

The rate of confirmed infections was more than 10 times (11.3) lower in those who received the booster compared to those who did not. The rate of serious infection was almost 20 times (19.5) lower.

The report was released just as the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) is supposed to discuss an earlier decision by President Joe Biden to follow Israel and administer booster shots to all eligible citizens. America is already providing third doses to immunocompromised people.

Biden and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced a plan on August 18 – about two and a half weeks after Israel opened the reminders to adults over 60 – to begin offering the reminders the week of September 20. Israel’s decision was based on research that showed vaccine-induced immunity worsened sharply about five months after the second shot.

Dr Sharon Alroy-Preis is supposed to present Israel’s research to the FDA on Friday.

Israel opened boosters to anyone over the age of 12 at the end of August. So far, nearly 3 million Israelis have received a third shot. The country continues to have an average of 10,000 new cases per day. However, unvaccinated people account for 65% of all serious infections in the country and around 90% of all people connected to extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) machines.

Biden announced that the boosters would be available in the United States starting eight months after an individual’s second dose of Pfizer or Moderna.

But moving forward with the booster injections, the FDA still needed to conduct an independent assessment and determination of the safety and efficacy of a third dose in conjunction with the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Drugs. immunization practices.

A TRIAL published Monday in the peer-reviewed medical journal Lancet by an international group of vaccine experts, however, opposed providing third doses to the general population. The authors said recent studies show that the vaccine continues to offer strong protection against the virus, including the Delta variant. They recommend waiting to give vaccine manufacturers time to modify the vaccine to match specific or new variants of the coronavirus rather than just providing an extra dose of the original version.

The Israeli study shows “that it is evident that the booster vaccination is very effective in reducing the rate of confirmed infection and serious illness,” according to a joint statement from the authors.

Specifically, the research team divided more than one million eligible Israelis over the age of 60 into two groups: those who received the booster and those who did not. Membership in either group was dynamic; individuals who initially belonged to the non-booster group left and joined the booster group 12 days after receiving the booster dose.

    Third dose of vaccine administered at Amigdor retirement home by Magen David Adom (MDA), Jerusalem, August 5, 2021. (MARC ISRAEL SELLEM) Third dose of vaccine administered at Amigdor retirement home by Magen David Adom (MDA), Jerusalem, August 5, 2021. (MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)

Overall, some 4,439 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 294 cases of serious illness were reported in the non-recall cohort, compared with just 934 new cases and 29 critically ill people in the booster cohort.

“Twelve days or more after the booster dose was given, the rate of confirmed infections and severe illness cases was more than ten times lower in the booster cohort compared to the non-booster cohort,” one explained. press release on the study. “An additional, more conservative analysis, which aimed to neutralize possible differences in behavior between the two cohorts, found that the booster cohort had a rate of confirmed infections about five times lower. “

People vaccinated with two doses more than six months ago are only half as likely as unvaccinated people to contract the virus, according to other studies in Israel. However, people who get the booster dose are only 5% more likely than unvaccinated people to get sick, this study showed. In other words, the effectiveness of the vaccine for people who received a third dose of Pfizer vaccine is about 95%, which is similar to the effectiveness of the original “fresh” vaccine that was released. reported against the original Wuhan strain.

However, the researchers cautioned in the review article that “in terms of effectiveness in the real world, the magnitude of such an effect remains uncertain.”

The study was a collaboration of researchers from the Ministry of Health, Weizmann Institute of Science, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Gertner Institute at Sheba Medical Center and KI Research Institute.

The team said future studies should determine the long-term effectiveness of the booster dose against the Delta variant and other potential future variants of concern.



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