Nature: Elderly people over 80 years old need to be vaccinated with two injections of the new crown vaccine to achieve the best protection effect

In the world, the most widely vaccinated COVID-19 vaccine are the two earliest FDA- approved mRNA vaccines.
Both mRNAs require two doses to provide better protection
.

On June 30, 2021, researchers from the University of Cambridge and other institutions in the United Kingdom published a research paper entitled: Age-related immune response heterogeneity to SARS-CoV-2 vaccine BNT162b2 in the top international academic journal Nature
.

The study found that about half of people over the age of 80 can achieve optimal virus neutralization only after a second shot of Pfizer-BioNTech's mRNA vaccine
.

The research team compared the immune responses of 80 elderly and 60 young healthcare workers after vaccination
.

Three weeks after the first injection of Pfizer-BioNTech's mRNA vaccine, compared with the young group, the proportion of the elderly group over 80 that produced sufficient neutralizing antibody titers was lower
.

After the first injection, compared with the younger group, the elderly group had a worse ability to neutralize the mutant strains that are worthy of attention, including Alpha (B.
1.
1.
7) and Beta (B.
1.
351) mutants
.

However, after the second injection, the neutralizing antibody responses of all subjects were comparable
.

Vaccines are still the top priority for the prevention and control of the new crown epidemic, but clinical trials that promote vaccine development rarely recruit people over 80 years old
.

Due to the tight supply of vaccines, some countries have decided or intend to extend the interval between two injections from 3 weeks to 12 weeks, but the author of the paper issued a warning
.

Original source:

Collier, DA, Ferreira, IATM, Kotagiri, P.