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Moderna’s vaccine against covid-19 produced persistent antibodies 90 days after its application, according to a study of 34 participants at the beginning of clinical trials, published this Thursday in New England Journal of Medicine.
The duration of protection is likely to be longer, but these are the first data, over a period of several months, independently validated by a scientific journal.
Study participants will be followed for 13 months to verify long-term protection, according to the authors.
Researchers from the national institutes of health tested the level of two types of antibodies against the coronavirus 90 days after the second dose of the vaccine, which will take place 28 days after the first.
The authors noted a slight and expected drop in antibody levels in vaccinated participants, but they remained high and above the natural immunity seen in previous recovered COVID-19 patients.
Also, no serious adverse events were seen in the so-called phase 1 trial, which had started in March.
Antibodies are only one component of the immune response, along with B lymphocytes (immune memory, antibody production) and T lymphocytes (which kill infected cells).
The researchers note that the data on immune memory cells is not yet known, but previous studies have shown that the vaccine actually induces killer cells.
Anthony Fauci, an immunologist and director of the US Institute of Infectious Diseases, said in a recent interview with the French news agency AFP that he was confident that the immune memory created by the vaccine would last for some time. But, “it is not known if it will be one, two, three or five years, it is not known,” he said, and only time will tell.
“This is very positive news overall,” virologist Benjamin Neuman, a professor at Texas A&M University, told AFP about the new study, noting that even in older people the immune response remained “reasonably strong. “.
