Frontiers in Immunology (Aug 2022)

Immunogenicity and immune-persistence of the CoronaVac or Covilo inactivated COVID-19 Vaccine: a 6-month population-based cohort study

  • Qianhui Hua,
  • Hangjie Zhang,
  • Pingping Yao,
  • Nani Xu,
  • Yisheng Sun,
  • Hangjing Lu,
  • Fang Xu,
  • Yuting Liao,
  • Juan Yang,
  • Haiyan Mao,
  • Yanjun Zhang,
  • Hanping Zhu,
  • Xiaowei Hu,
  • Huakun Lv,
  • Jianmin Jiang

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fimmu.2022.939311
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 13

Abstract

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BackgroundOwing to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and the emergency use of different types of COVID-19 vaccines, there is an urgent need to consider the effectiveness and persistence of different COVID-19 vaccines.MethodsWe investigated the immunogenicity of CoronaVac and Covilo, two inactivated vaccines against COVID-19 that each contain inactivated severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The levels of neutralizing antibodies to live SARS-CoV-2 and the inhibition rates of neutralizing antibodies to pseudovirus, as well as the immunoglobulin (Ig)G and IgM responses towards the spike (S) and nucleocapsid (N) protein of SARS-CoV-2 at 180 days after two-dose vaccination were detected.ResultsThe CoronaVac and Covilo vaccines induced similar antibody responses. Regarding neutralizing antibodies to live SARS-CoV-2, 77.9% of the CoronaVac vaccine recipients and 78.3% of the Covilo vaccine recipients (aged 18–59 years) seroconverted by 28 days after the second vaccine dose. Regarding SARS-CoV-2-specific antibodies, 97.1% of the CoronaVac vaccine recipients and 95.7% of the Covilo vaccine recipients seroconverted by 28 days after the second vaccine dose. The inhibition rates of neutralizing antibody against a pseudovirus of the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant were significantly lower compared with those against a pseudovirus of wildtype SARS-CoV-2. Associated with participant characteristics and antibody levels, persons in the older age group and with basic disease, especially a chronic respiratory disease, tended to have lower anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody seroconversion rates.ConclusionAntibodies that were elicited by these two inactivated COVID-19 vaccines appeared to wane following their peak after the second vaccine dose, but they persisted at detectable levels through 6 months after the second vaccine dose, and the effectiveness of these antibodies against the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 was lower than their effectiveness against wildtype SARS-CoV-2, which suggests that attention must be paid to the protective effectiveness, and its persistence, of COVID-19 vaccines on SARS-CoV-2 variants.

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