Antibody tests should not be used for diagnosis or to give people a sense of protection, says Dr Marlin McKay.
A new study carried out in collaboration with Oxford University found a longer gap between doses of the Pfizer vaccine leads to higher overall antibody levels.
The study was conducted to help inform vaccination strategies against the Delta variant, which reduces the effectiveness of the first dose of Covid-19 vaccine even though two doses are still protective.“For the longer dosing interval, neutralising antibody levels against the Delta variant were poorly induced after a single dose, and not maintained during the interval before the second dose,” the study authors said.
“After two vaccine doses, neutralising antibody levels were twice as high after the longer dosing interval compared with the shorter dosing interval.” Neutralising antibodies are thought to play an important role in immunity against the coronavirus but not the entire picture, with T cells also playing a part.
The study found overall T cell levels were 1.6 times lower with a long gap compared with the short dosing schedule of three to four weeks, but a higher proportion were “helper” T cells, which support long-term immune memory, with the long gap.
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