RE: Covid vaccine protection ‘short lived,’ booster doses essential, study confirms19 Jul 2022 12:51
More about T cells (Includes comments from Professor Wendy Burgers, a virologist at the University of Cape Town):-
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-07-19-can-new-covid-19-vaccines-keep-up-with-the-rapidly-changing-virus/
“The other thing to consider is that antibodies don’t stick around for long. These attacking proteins wane after a few months, which leaves you vulnerable to infections once again. “Reinfection has just become a part of our lives now,” says Moore. “Antibodies are just one part of the immune system, and T cells do a really fantastic job, generally, at preventing severe disease. And that’s what’s changed. Our focus has now shifted away from preventing infection, which has become much harder to do, and is more focused on preventing disease and death.”
T cells offer a much broader response that’s harder to get around because they can recognise multiple parts of the virus. These cells, while harder to measure, are also more durable and do not wane in the same way as antibodies.
Professor Wendy Burgers, a virologist at the University of Cape Town, says: “The T cell response is now doing more of the heavy lifting. Before, antibodies were still protecting from infection, so that was the biggest pressure that the virus was feeling. The very first thing the virus needs to do is get into a cell and antibodies are there blocking its way so that is the first foe it must fight.”
As the virus continues to evolve, there is a risk that it could also start getting around this part of the immune system – particularly if antibodies become less of a challenge. Burgers says there is a possibility that future variants could change to interrupt the alerts to T cells telling them where to attack, but this is much harder to block completely.
An April paper in JAMA found that even though Omicron had changed its structure significantly and some mutations did help the variant hide from T cells, the overall response was unaffected. Since T cells recognise a wider section of the virus, these changes didn’t lower the protection offered by vaccines against severe disease.”
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