New research indicates that unlike flu vaccines, previous COVID-19 immunizations may enhance the efficacy of subsequent vaccines by fostering broad-spectrum neutralizing antibodies, suggesting annual updates could help combat emerging variants and related viruses. The COVID-19 pandemic has ended, yet the virus responsible continues to circulate, hospitalizing thousands weekly and frequently producing new variants. Due to the virus’s remarkable capacity for mutation and immune evasion, the World Health Organization (WHO) advises yearly updates to COVID-19 vaccines.
But some scientists worry that the remarkable success of the first COVID-19 vaccines may work against updated versions, undermining the utility of an annual vaccination program. A similar problem plagues the annual flu vaccine campaign; immunity elicited by one year’s flu shots can interfere with immune responses in subsequent years, reducing the vaccines’ effectiveness. A new study by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St.
Louis helps to address this question. Unlike immunity to influenza virus, prior immunity to SARS-CoV-2 , the virus that causes COVID-19, doesn’t inhibit later vaccine responses. Rather, it promotes the development of broadly inhibitory antibodies, the researchers report.
Benefits of Repeated Vaccination The study, available online in Nature , shows that people who were repeatedly vaccinated for COVID-19 — initially receiving shots aimed at the original variant, f.
