NNew data released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests the latest COVID-19 booster can protect against virus infection by about 54%.
the study The report, published in the CDC’s online journal Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, shows that the updated vaccine will protect against the strain it targets (called XBB.1.5) and subvariants that have emerged since the vaccine was manufactured. It was shown that the protective effects against JN.1 are essentially equivalent. JN.1 is currently dominant virus It is distributed in the United States.
The study’s author, Ruth Link-Gelles, said the latest coronavirus vaccinations show they offer significant protection to those who receive them.
“We know that coronavirus continues to cause infections. thousands of people hospitalized and hundreds of dead ,” Link Gerres, director of the Vaccine Effectiveness Program at the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told STAT. “And the additional 50% protection against COVID-19 would be a meaningful increase in protection, especially for those most at risk.”
Arnold Monto, a veteran vaccine efficacy researcher at the University of Michigan, said the study results are promising for coronavirus vaccine boosters at this point.
“We are moving into an era of 50%, 60% efficacy. It reminds me of the flu. [vaccine], isn’t it? Mont said.
Link-Gelles agreed with this analogy, noting that in good years, the flu vaccine provides this range of protection. “So this is exactly what the hope is for a vaccine against a respiratory virus in a population that has basic immunity to that virus.”
The study used a so-called test-negative design and included 9,222 people who had coronavirus-like symptoms and were tested for the virus. Of those, about 3,300 people tested positive for the coronavirus, and the results were calculated based on a comparison of those who received the booster shot and those who did not.
Vaccine efficacy was 58% in people tested within 7 to 59 days after vaccination and 49% in people tested 60 to 119 days after vaccination. Although this difference was not statistically significant, the article suggests that protection is expected to decrease over time, given what has been observed so far with COVID-19 vaccinations. doing.
“We observed a consistent pattern of VE decline (vaccine effectiveness) after initial monovalent and bivalent COVID-19 vaccinations, which suggests that over time after update vaccination, symptoms of especially symptomatic infection and “Attenuation of VE is expected for less severe outcomes,” the article states. Said.
Linkgels said that although the number of coronavirus infections has begun to subside somewhat in the country, people who have not yet received the latest version of the vaccine should do so. “It’s really important that people who don’t already have a vaccine go out and get vaccinated this year, especially for those who are most at risk, such as pregnant people and people with high-risk conditions.”