Antibody levels remain significantly high 6 months after innoculation with the Covid-19 vaccine.
This is the most important finding from CEDOC researcher and immunologist Helena Soares, leader of the Immunology and Pathogenesis lab, sharing with Público newspaper a novel research her group is performing in collaboration with José Alves, head of the Immune Response and Vascular Disease lab at CEDOC, and director of the Systemic Immune-mediated Diseases Unit at Hospital Professor Doutor Fernando Fonseca. Since January 2021, the group has been following the response of the BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine against Covid-19 in 86 health professionals and results are very promising.
Helena says that only one month after the first dose there is "very robust levels of antibody production, which reaches its peak 1 month after the second dose", as other studies also support. "There is a decline after that first peak and 3 months after there is oscillation in those levels, although not statistically significant".
The researcher also makes a few warnings, namely that it's totally normal that antibodies decrease after vaccination. And that the study sample consists of people between 30 and 50 years of age, and this trend in decline in older people may be different. More importantly she reminds us: "Although very important, antibodies are only one component of the immune response, which is complex and our protection against infections is assured by diferent mechanisms and players that may be, sometimes, redundant"
In her lab, Helena and her group are already measuring the levels of T and B memory cells induced by the vaccine against Covid-19. However, this study requires more time and there are still no results.
The researchers will continue to accompany these health professionals for at least a year and a half in a study that is already helping us understand how our immunity works after two doses of Covid-19 vaccine.
You can read the new full article in Público dedicated to this research here.