Against the backdrop of massive surge in Covid-cases in pockets of many countries like China, a new study has said Omicron infections produced even better immune responses than a booster shot in vaccinated people.
The study hints that people who are vaccinated and then get infected by the Omicron variant may have better antibodies to deal with a vast range of Covid variants. The study has been published in a preprint on the bioRxiv server.
However, the authors of the study conducted by vaccine maker BioNTech SE and the University of Washington have warned people and cautioned that they shouldn’t seek out infections in response to the findings.
John Wherry, a professor and director of the Institute for Immunology at the University of Pennsylvania, who reviewed the study, told a new agency that breakthrough infections should be thought of as essentially equivalent to another dose of vaccine and that if someone had Covid recently, they could wait before getting another booster shot.
The researchers have argued that offering people an Omicron-adapted booster shot may be more beneficial than multiple ones with the original vaccines. “We are at the point where we may want to consider having a different vaccine to boost people,†David Veesler, an assistant professor at the University of Washington told the news agency.
The researchers also identified antibodies in the nasal mucus of these patients, which could help them neutralise the virus as soon as it enters the body.
Meanwhile, the study also found that response was missing in unvaccinated people who had caught Omicron as their first exposure to the virus and they warned that the remaining unvaccinated could be dangerous if a new variant that is significantly different emerges.
