A new lab study from Oregon Health & Science University suggests more than one approach to robust COVID-19 immunity.

According to a new study, two types of immunity – breakthrough infections after vaccination and spontaneous infection after vaccine – produce roughly equal levels of immune protection.

“It makes no difference whether you get infected-and-then-vaccinated, or if you get vaccinated-and-then-a-breakthrough infection,” says co-senior author Fikadu Tafesse.

“In either case, you will get a really, really robust immune response – amazingly high.”

The study builds on an OHSU study released in December that demonstrated exceptionally high levels of immune response in the aftermath of breakthrough infections, a phenomenon known as “super immunity.” That investigation was the first to detect cross-neutralization of blood serum from breakthrough patients using various live SARS-CoV-2 strains.

It doesn’t matter whether someone gets a breakthrough illness or is vaccinated after a normal infection, according to a recent study. Immune responses evaluated in blood serum in both cases indicated antibodies that were similarly abundant and strong – at least 10 times more potent – than immunity induced only by vaccination.

Although the research was conducted before the discovery of the omicron strain, experts believe that the hybrid immune responses will be similar with the new highly transmissible strain.

Scientists looked at 104 people who had the Pfizer vaccine, and they carefully divided them into three groups: 42 who were vaccinated with no infection, 31 who were vaccinated after an infection, and 31 who had breakthrough infections following vaccination.

The researchers took blood samples from each participant and exposed them to three forms of the live SARS-CoV-2 virus at a Biosafety Level 3 lab on OHSU’s Marquam Hill campus, controlling for age, sex, and time since vaccination and infection.

They discovered that both groups with “hybrid immunity” produced higher levels of immunity than the group that was vaccinated but not infected.

With the highly contagious omicron strain spreading around the world, the new findings suggest that each new breakthrough infection could bring the pandemic closer to an end.

“I would expect at this point many vaccinated people are going to wind up with breakthrough infections – and hence a form of hybrid immunity,” says senior co-author Bill Messer.

The virus will eventually encounter an ever-growing reservoir of human immunity.

The OHSU researchers state that they have not tested for many rounds of natural infection, however, many people will certainly fall into that group given the fact that millions of people in the United States and around the world remain completely unvaccinated. With the emergence of the extremely contagious omicron strain, many unvaccinated people who have already been infected will most likely be infected again.

People in that group have had a lot of different immune responses to vaccinations, Messer adds.

“I can guarantee that such immunity will be variable, with some people getting equivalent immunity to vaccination, but most will not,” according to him. “And there is no way, short of laboratory testing, to know who gets what immunity. Vaccination makes it much more likely to be assured of a good immune response.”

“Immunity from natural infection alone is variable. Some people produce a strong response and others do not,” says Senior co-author Marcel Curlin.

“But vaccination combined with immunity from infection almost always provides very strong responses.

“These results together with our previous work point to a time when SARS-CoV-2 may become a mostly mild endemic infection like a seasonal respiratory tract infection instead of a worldwide pandemic.”

Source: 10.1126/sciimmunol.abn8014

Image Credit: Getty

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