Preprint: Omicron incompletely escapes immunity induced by the Pfizer vaccine

Africa, B.1.1.529, Coronavirus, Genome, Hospitalization, Infection, Omicron, Pfizer/Biontech, South Africa, Testing, Vaccine, Vaccine Breakthrough, Vaccine Waning

Laboratory research from South Africa strongly suggests that the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant escapes antibody immunity induced by the Pfizer-BioNTech (Comirnaty) vaccine, but that considerable immunity is retained in people who were both vaccinated and previously infected.

“The clinical implications of these important laboratory data need to be determined. It is likely that lesser vaccine-induced protection against infection and disease would be the result. Importantly, most vaccinologists agree that the current vaccines will still protect against severe disease and death in the face of Omicron infection. It is therefore critical that everyone should be vaccinated,” said Africa Health Research Institute executive director Professor Willem Hanekom.

The research has been submitted to medRxiv. To access an advance copy of the manuscript, click here.

AHRI.org press release

 

 

 

 

 

Image by Thomas Anderson from Pixabay

** This post was originally published on December 7, 2021 **