New US-based Covid study suggest two paths to acquire ‘super immunity’: Here’s how

With a surge in Omicron cases and rapid pick in the pace of vaccination, the instances of breakthrough infection have increased. But vaccination and infection caught before or after the jab is leading the global population towards robust immunity. A new laboratory research from Oregon Health & Science university review suggests that there are two ways to re approach summer immunity against Covid-19 and both ways are equally plausible.

The two forms of immunity are breakthrough infection following vaccination and natural infection followed by vaccination. The new study published in the journal Science Immunology shows that it makes no difference in both ways. According to Fikadu Tafesse, Ph.D., assistant professor of molecular microbiology and immunology in the OHSU School of Medicine, in either case the person will acquire a “really robust immune response – amazingly high.”

The research is a follow up to the Oregaon University’s study published in December last year that finds that breakthrough infection created “super immunity”. The study measured cross-neutralization of blood serum from breakthrough cases using multiple live SARS-CoV-2 variants.

The new study done before the emergence of the omicron variant suggests that in both cases antibodies found in the blood serum were 10 times more abundant and potent than immunity generated by vaccination alone.

The research was conducted on 104 subjects fully vaccinated with the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine that comprises those vaccinated without infection, caught infection before vaccination and caught infection after vaccination. The blood samples from each participant were subjected to three variants of SARS-CoV-2 and it was inferred that the second and third group have much more immunity than the first group with just vaccination.

Is Omicron paving a path towards endemic?

The new findings suggest each new breakthrough infection potentially brings the pandemic closer to the end and over time, the virus will run into an ever-expanding pool of human immunity.

The scientists , however, have not studied immunity in a group that were exposed to multiple rounds of infection with or without vaccination. But the previous research suggests for them the immune response is much more variable than that from vaccination. “But vaccination combined with immunity from infection almost always provides very strong responses.” senior co-author Marcel Curlin, M.D.

Nevertheless, the results indicated that in near future SARS-CoV-2 may become a mild endemic infection like a ‘seasonal respiratory tract infection’ instead of a pandemic.