BETHESDA, Maryland - New evidence shows a booster dose of the coronavirus vaccine may provide protection against a subvariant of omicron – the variant which has rapidly become the dominant strain in the world and currently accounts for most cases of the virus in the U.S.Researchers from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center examined neutralizing antibodies produced after vaccination or infection.
These are antibodies that can bind to the virus and block its entry into cells.The study, funded in part by the National Institutes of Health’s National Cancer Institute and published in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that after a booster vaccination, levels of antibodies in the blood that could bind to and neutralize a new omicron variant increased substantially.
The team tested antibodies from the blood of 24 people who had been vaccinated and boosted with the Pfizer shot. In addition, they looked at antibodies from eight people who had recovered from COVID-19, seven of whom had also been vaccinated.The omicron variant has three major sublineages: BA.1, BA.2, and BA.3.
BA.1 rapidly became dominant, and the number of cases of BA.2 has recently increased in many regions of the world.Medical center holds COVID-19 vaccine before it is administered in a clinical trial. (Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images)"Our data show that a boost of the Pfizer vaccine is needed for the generation of neutralizing antibodies against the BA2 variant.