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Berlin, Feb 4 (PTI) People who are triple-vaccinated against COVID-19 develop a high-quality antibody response which can neutralise the Omicron variant efficiently, according to a study.<\/p>\n
This also applies to people who are infected with the virus thrice, to those having recovered and then received two vaccinations, and to double-vaccinated individuals who experience a breakthrough infection, the researchers said.<\/p>\n
The study, published recently in the journal Nature Medicine, tracked the antibodies of vaccinated and recovered individuals for two years.<\/p>\n
The participants comprised 98 recovered persons and 73 people without prior infection. Both groups were offered vaccination with the mRNA-based Pfizer vaccine.<\/p>\n
The researchers from Technical University of Munich (TUM) in Germany found that a total of three exposures to the viral spike protein lead to production of virus neutralising antibodies that are high in quantity as well as quality.<\/p>\n
These high-quality antibodies bind to the viral spike protein more vigorously, and are also capable of effectively fighting the Omicron variant.<\/p>\n
The spike protein is used by the SARS-CoV-2 virus to enter and infect the cells.<\/p>\n
The team found the same effect in triple-vaccinated people, in those who had recovered from COVID-19 and then had two vaccinations, and double-vaccinated people who then had a breakthrough infection.<\/p>\n
“The immunity built up or strengthened by means of vaccination is key to effective protection against future variants of the virus,” said Percy Knolle, professor at TUM.<\/p>\n
“A recent breakthrough infection — as irritating and undesirable as it is — has in fact the same effect as an additional vaccination on this important arm of the immune system,” Knolle said.<\/p>\n
Since the beginning of the pandemic, voluntary participants from the staff at TUM participated in the study and were regularly tested.<\/p>\n
The researchers identified individuals who had contracted SARS-CoV-2 during the first wave of the pandemic in spring 2020, and compared them to a second group of people who had not been infected.<\/p>\n
As predicted from its many mutations, Omicron exhibited the most pronounced evasion from neutralising antibodies compared to all other viral variants tested, they said.<\/p>\n
“For Omicron, you need considerably more and better antibodies to prevent infection,” said Oliver T Keppler from Max von Pettenkofer Institute and Gene Center Munich.<\/p>\n
The researchers developed a new virus neutralisation test, which allowed them to analyse antibodies in many blood samples and different variants of the virus at high throughput rates.<\/p>\n
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Berlin, Feb 4 (PTI) People who are triple-vaccinated against COVID-19 develop a high-quality antibody response which can neutralise the Omicron variant efficiently, according to a study. This also applies to people who are infected with the virus thrice, to those having recovered and then received two vaccinations, and to double-vaccinated individuals who experience a breakthrough […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-183358","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183358\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}