NPR News channel expressed concern on June 19, 2021 concerning current vaccine efficacy against new variants. Will the current crop of COVID-19 vaccines prevent these variants from causing disease, it wondered? Then it turned over the page to share new data on vaccine effectiveness in variants that brightened our day.
A Fairly Straightforward Study Says the Answer Is Yes
We included a link to a summary of the research at the end of this post for the record, because the terminology goes over our head. Fortunately for us, NPR News has a knack of explaining things in more straightforward terms.
Apparently, scientists took blood samples from volunteers who had received the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine. And then they examined these to assess the neutralizing antibody levels that prevent the virus from entering the host’s cells.
The research team was from Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. Center Director Dan Barouch told NPR News ‘the neutralizing antibodies reduced about five-fold to the B.1.351 variant’.
But New Data on Vaccine Effectiveness Has a Positive Spin Too
B.1.351 is a coronavirus variant of concern that World Health Organization relabeled the Beta South Africa variant. ‘Our finding is very similar to what other investigators have shown with other vaccines,’ Dan Barouch admits. However, when we dug deeper we made a fresh finding he says.
There are many other types of immune responses besides neutralizing antibodies. And these responses include binding antibodies, FC functional antibodies, and ‘killer’ T-cell responses of which T-cells are most important.
Dan Barouch and his team found the new data on vaccine effectiveness revealed the aggressive T-cell responses were intact. And this was the case with the Alpha UK and Delta India variants too. The significance of this finding is T-cells seek out, and destroy cells that are infected. And help clear infection directly after the disease evaded the spike protein defenders.
Related
T-Cells at the Heart of the Attack on Covid-19
How Long We Are Immune After COVID?
Preview Image: Graphic of Primary Immune Response
