A team of Spanish scientists has demonstrated the efficacy and benefits of achieving hybrid immunity against covid-19 through infection, naturally and through the vaccine.
This has been demonstrated by scientists from the AIDS Serology and Immunopathology Units of the National Center for Microbiology (CNM) of the Carlos III Health Institute, and the results of their work are published in the Journal of Medical Virology.
The study analyzes the immune response against different variants of the coronavirus -including the Omicron- in people vaccinated against covid, and the conclusions suggest that a maturation mechanism of neutralizing antibodies -one of the defenses of the immune system- can cause the effect positive of separating vaccination for a certain time after a natural infection.
The authors, as explained by Francisco Díez Fuertes, highlight the interest in studying the so-called hybrid immunity, which includes the immune response generated against natural infection and that developed by vaccination.
The combination of both immune responses has been studied in this case among 66 doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers at the Puerta de Hierro Hospital in Majadahonda (Madrid).
Half of the study participants had not had a previous infection at the time mass vaccinations against the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus began in Spain, in early 2021.
The other half had been diagnosed with the infection by means of a “PCR” test, with a relevant difference: 14 of them were infected during the first 10 months of the epidemic in 2020, while another 17 had been infected in the three months prior to receiving the first dose of the vaccine, between November 2020 and January 2021.
The research confirms the beneficial effect of hybrid immunity, which manages to significantly increase the neutralizing immune response against variants such as Alpha, Beta or Delta, and the increase is especially significant against the Omicron variant.
Javier García Pérez, main author of the article, has pointed out that one of the most important results of the study has made it possible to verify the effect of vaccinating more than three months after a natural infection has occurred.
