One group of people have ‘super immunity’ against coronavirus disease.
Fully vaccinated people who have a breakthrough infection of COVID end up with “super immunity”.
According to researchers at Oregon University, people who were vaccinated and then got a coronavirus infection are the most protected against the disease.
For this study, a group of vaccinated people who had a breakthrough infection were compared to another group of vaccinated people who never had COVID.
They saw that those with breakthrough infections had an increase in antibodies by 2,000 percent compared with the other group.
Dr Fikadu Tafesse, the study’s co-author, said:
“The increases were substantial, up to a 1,000% increase and sometimes up to 2,000%, so it’s really high immunity.
It’s almost ‘super immunity.'”
However, the authors warn that people should not try to get infected with the coronavirus because there is a risk of severe illness.
Professor Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease expert, commented on the study:
“This is one of the first that shows a breakthrough infection following vaccination generates stronger immunity than prior infection or vaccination alone.”
Several studies have suggested that individuals who had COVID and received one dose of a COVID vaccine were highly protected from re-infection.
Professor Gandhi said:
“This is one of the first that shows a breakthrough infection following vaccination generates stronger immunity than prior infection or vaccination alone.”
Omicron is more contagious than Delta and other COVID variants, thus these findings are reassuring for vaccinated people.
However, fully vaccinated people can be infected with Omicron but most are either asymptomatic or experience mild symptoms.
Dr Tafesse said:
“What we’re saying is, we know life happens.
If you happen to be exposed to the virus, you’ll have this amazing immune response.
It mirrors the immunity response we get to the booster.”
Experts think that the immune system learns all the time; when it sees the virus or the vaccine, it gets ready to fight better against different COVID variants.
Professor Shane Crotty, a virologist at La Jolla Institute for Immunology, said:
“If you get at least one dose of vaccine, you’ll have the best immunity of anyone.
You’ll have amazing immunity against omicron and any variant that’s been identified.”
The study was published in JAMA (Bates et al., 2021).
