Isabella Eckerle, who led this work, is a professor in the Department of Medicine at the UNIGE Faculty of Medicine and head of the HUGUNIGE Centre for Emerging Viral Diseases. The team analysed the antibody neutralisation capacity of 120 people previously infected with one of the different variants, unvaccinated, or vaccinated and infected, and Eckerle explained that this represented “the majority of cases in the community”.
The study found Omicron to be the most effective at evading pre-existing natural immunity and, to a lesser extent, immunity induced by vaccination.
In vaccinated individuals, while the neutralisation capacity is reduced, it remains ‘far superior’ to natural immunity alone, the study found. Researchers suggested that this could explain why Omicron is responsible for a net increase in vaccine break-through infections, but not in hospitalisations…
