COVID-19 Vaccine Updates - 1

A paper (preprint) co-authored by Gayathri Amrithalingam has shown that delaying the second jab of Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA vaccine could boost antibody responses more than threefold in people more than 80 years old. This along with strict curbs in UK are believed to be responsible for the flattened infection curve. (Recently, UK had decided to extend the period of second jab from 4 to 12 weeks.) The results are reassuring, but are specific to the Pfizer vaccine, which is not available in many low-to-middle income countries. More such studies to determine the antibody responses of other vaccines are warranted, especially when India suffers a serious vaccine crunch.

Download the preprint