Omicron infection could boost immunity of vaccinated people: Study

Research suggests that people who are vaccinated and are then infected with the omicron variant may be able to beat other variants of coronavirus.

A set of studies showed that the infection formed even better immune responses than the booster shots in vaccinated patients.

Research teams from the University of Washington and COVID-19 vaccine maker BioNTech SE posted the outcomes on preprint server bioRxiv in recent weeks.

The findings reassure that the people who have been vaccinated and have caught omicron won’t probably fall seriously ill with other variants soon. However, the research still needs to be affirmed by real-world evidence.

John Wherry, Professor and Director of the Institute for Immunology at the University of Pennsylvania, who recently viewed the BioNTech study but was not involved in it, said this is the right time to consider the advanced infections as an important correspondent to another dose of vaccine.

This could mean that if someone has been infected with Covid recently, they could wait befor9*26e receiving another booster shot, as per Wherry.

However, Alexandra Walls, a Principal Scientist at the University of Washington, cautioned that people should not pursue infections in retort to the research.

The data has been published as omicron is still driving outbreaks in some parts of the world, most precisely in China, where citizens of Shanghai have been locked in their homes for the last six weeks.

The waves of new variants are coming more quickly as omicron is a variant that transmits fast, giving it several opportunities to mutate and spread as countries are dropping restrictions.

Meanwhile, the regulators advise if Covid vaccines should be upgraded for fighting with the omicron variant.

Recently, the team of BioNTech argued that the data species that provide people with an omicron-adapted booster shot might offer more benefits than the multiple ones with the original vaccines.

Source Credit - https://www.business-standard.com/article/health/omicron-infection-turbo-charges-vaccinated-people-s-covid-immunity-study-122051500638_1.html

By Shreya Bhute

With corporate exposure in software and marketing, Shreya was always intrigued by content development. Having pursued her graduation in I.T. engineering, she works as a content writer for people.partilepep.com and jots down news articles across distinct domains including technology, business and healthcare.