- Published
- 01 December 2021
- Journal article
Effectiveness and durability of protection against future SARS-CoV-2 infection conferred by COVID-19 vaccination and previous infection; findings from the UK SIREN prospective cohort study of healthcare workers March 2020 to September 2021
- Authors
-
- Source
- medRxiv
Abstract
Background Understanding the duration and effectiveness of infection and vaccine-acquired SARS-CoV-2 immunity is essential to inform pandemic policy interventions, including the timing of vaccine-boosters. We investigated this in our large prospective cohort of UK healthcare workers undergoing routine asymptomatic PCR testing.
Methods We assessed vaccine effectiveness (VE) (up to 10-months after first dose) and infection-acquired immunity by comparing time to PCR-confirmed infection in vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals using a Cox regression-model, adjusted by prior SARS-CoV-2 infection status, vaccine-manufacturer/dosing-interval, demographics and workplace exposures.
Results Of 35,768 participants, 27% (n=9,488) had a prior SARS-CoV-2 infection. Vaccine coverage was high: 97% had two-doses (79% BNT162b2 long-interval, 8% BNT162b2 short-interval, 8% ChAdOx1). There were 2,747 primary infections and 210 reinfections between 07/12/2020 and 21/09/2021. Adjusted VE (aVE) decreased from 81% (95% CI 68%-89%) 14-73 days after dose-2 to 46% (95% CI 22%-63%) >6-months; with no significant difference for short-interval BNT162b2 but significantly lower aVE (50% (95% CI 18%-70%) 14-73 days after dose-2 from ChAdOx1. Protection from infection-acquired immunity showed evidence of waning in unvaccinated follow-up but remained consistently over 90% in those who received two doses of vaccine, even in those infected over 15-months ago.
Conclusion Two doses of BNT162b2 vaccination induce high short-term protection to SARS-CoV-2 infection, which wanes significantly after six months. Infection-acquired immunity boosted with vaccination remains high over a year after infection. Boosters will be essential to maintain protection in vaccinees who have not had primary infection to reduce infection and transmission in this population.
Rights
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Cite as
Hall, V., Foulkes, S., Insalata, F., Saei, A., Kirwan, P., Atti, A., Wellington, E., Khawam, J., Munro, K., Cole, M., Tranquillini, C., Taylor-Kerr, A., Hettiarachchi, N., Calbraith, D., Sajedi, N., Milligan, I., Themistocleous, Y., Corrigan, D., Cromey, L., Price, L., Stewart, S., De Lacy, E., Norman, C., Linley, E., Otter, A., Semper, A., Hewson, J., D'Arcangelo, S., SIREN Study Group, Chand, M., Brown, C., Brooks, T., Islam, J., Charlett, A. & Hopkins, S. 2021, 'Effectiveness and durability of protection against future SARS-CoV-2 infection conferred by COVID-19 vaccination and previous infection; findings from the UK SIREN prospective cohort study of healthcare workers March 2020 to September 2021'. To be published in MedRxiv [Preprint]. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.11.29.21267006