According to a recent study conducted by researchers from the University of Birmingham and the University of Glasgow has revealed that third vaccine doses effectively improve antibody responses among people who showed poor immune responses to two doses of COVID-19 vaccines. This study was published in The Lancet Rheumatology and conducted at 11 hospitals across the UK.
In this OCTAVE DUO trial, researchers involved 804 people who had various health complications that weakened their immune systems. These participants were above 18 and did not show a strong immune response after receiving 2 doses of the COVID-19 vaccines. This was a randomized controlled trial conducted between August 4, 2021, and March 31, 2022. In this study, participants were randomly assigned to take either the Pfizer-BioNTech (BNT162b2) or Moderna (mRNA-1273) vaccines as their third vaccine to boost their immune system. On the other hand, people with lymphoid malignancies were given NVX-CoV2373.
When researchers observed the collected data, they found that 90% of participants had significantly increased antibody levels after taking a third vaccine dose. This shows that this third vaccine dose effectively worked as a booster and increased antibody levels. But people with lymphoid disease and chronic renal disease showed the poorest response to this third vaccine dose.
The researchers also found that some medications used to treat autoimmune diseases and cancers such as B cell targeted therapy and antimetabolites can reduce antibody response. Also, 80% of all participants showed T cell responses after taking the booster dose. This clearly shows that T cells are an important part of the immune system’s defense against COVID-19 as antibody response can vary.
One of the researchers says that this booster dose is very important for those vulnerable individuals who did not show sufficient immune responses after taking initial vaccine doses. She also says that even though this booster helped increase antibody levels for the majority of participants, there is a need for other strategies to help most vulnerable people. Healthcare professionals need to understand the results of this study and should make some effective strategies to fight against COVID-19.
Reference Link:
Immunogenicity of third dose COVID-19 vaccine strategies in patients who are immunocompromised with suboptimal immunity following two doses (OCTAVE-DUO): an openlabel, multicentre, randomised, controlled, phase 3 trial, The Lancet Rheumatology (2024).
DOI: 10.1016/S2665-9913(24)00065-1
