Evaluation of PastoCovac plus vaccine as a booster dose on vaccinated individuals with inactivated COVID-19 vaccine

Abstract

COVID-19 pandemic has been managed through global vaccination programs. However, the antibody waning in various types of vaccines came to notice. Hereby, PastoCovac Plus as a protein subunit vaccine was investigated in immunized health care workers by COVAXIN (BBV152). The booster vaccine was recommended at least three months post the second dose of COVAXIN. Sera collection was done before and after each injection. SARS-CoV-2 PCR test was done monthly to detect any asymptomatic and symptomatic vaccine breakthrough.47.9 and 24.3% of the participants were seronegative for anti-N and anti-S antibodies three months after the second dose of COVAXIN, respectively. On average, fold-rises of 70, 93, 8 and mean-rises of 23.32, 892.4, 5.59 were recorded regarding neutralizing antibody, quantitative and semi-quantitative anti-Spike antibody, respectively. Anti-Spike and neutralizing antibodies seroconversion was seen 59.3% and 45.7%, respectively. The vaccine breakthrough assessment showed that all the isolated samples belonged to SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant. PastoCovac Plus boosting is strongly recommended in combination with inactivated vaccine platforms against SARS-CoV-2.

Keywords

• PastoCovac plus
• SARS-CoV-2
• COVID-19
• Protein-subunit vaccine
• Prime-boost
• Iran