Study Reveals Loss of Protection of Vaccines over Time

Nov, 2021 - By SMI

A study conducted by a team of researchers from the York University, Canada explained about the long-term protection of vaccines.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused massive changes to the structure of countries across the globe. The pandemic has threatened public health globally. The pandemic has forced many countries to shut down their businesses and impose restrictions on freedom of movement. The COVID-19 pandemic is characterized by high infection and transmission rate. The rapid transmission of the coronavirus resulted into high mortality, especially those with comorbid conditions or immunocompromised individuals, lead to the disease-causing over 4.9 million deaths globally. The healthcare professionals, pharmaceutical industries, researchers, and scientists have been continuously trying to develop effective therapeutics to contain the pandemic. The continuous efforts of the researchers and scientists resulted in the development of vaccines such as Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, Moderna vaccine, AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine, and others that are effective against COVID-19. Vaccination campaigns have been carried out across nations to combat the spread of the disease. However, with time new variants of SARS-CoV-2 have emerged which are known to evade either vaccine-induced immunity or immunity developed through natural infection. For this study, the researchers designed a novel in-host mathematical model. This model is able to describe vaccination process in those cases where mRNA vaccines are administered. mRNA vaccines especially target either receptor-binding domain of the Spike protein or the complete spike protein. It is important to note that mutation of the coronavirus can change the conformation of the monomers that make up the spike protein trimer.

The study shed light on vaccine dynamics in mRNA vaccines. The researchers revealed that this model would help vaccine manufacturers or public health policy workers, as chance of rise in infection rates is higher in winter. This study reveals clinically guided qualitative prediction about the loss of protection of vaccines over time. The researchers concluded that they observed different rates of decay in immune responses for different ages. They observed that older individuals show faster rate of plasma B cell death.