A new study claims to have settled any debate: vaccination provides superior protection from COVID-19 compared to natural immunity from an infection. Although both getting vaccinated or being infected with SARS-CoV-2 will help build immunity to the virus, mRNA vaccines do not trigger the production of antibodies that attack the body, so-called autoantibodies, which can arise in COVID-19 patients.
Scientists and clinicians are still learning about all the impacts of COVID-19, but there does seem to be a link between immunological problems and COVID-19, including autoantibodies that attack the self.
A new study has analyzed whether vaccination can trigger the same problem. The work showed that infected patients do indeed carry autoantibodies, but people who have only received an mRNA vaccination do not carry those autoantibodies. The findings have been reported in Nature Communications.
"We showed the vaccination provides all the benefit of antiviral immunity without autoantibody development," said co-corresponding study author Aaron Ring, MD, PhD, an Associate Professor at Yale School of Medicine. "So the cost you pay in terms of risk is substantially lower for getting vaccinated than becoming infected."
Previous work by this group has shown that COVID-19 patients produce a diverse repetoire of autoantibodies at a high rate. "This was a startling and extremely concerning development," said Ring.
In this study, the researchers assessed the autoantibodies found in blood samples taken from people before and after vaccination, and these were compared to autoantibody level changes in COVID-19 patients.
In three different patient groups, there was no evidence that vaccination caused a rise in the levels of autoantibodies. One group of 33 people was recruited at Yale; another 38 volunteers with autoimmune diseases and 25 healthy controls from the Seattle area were assessed; and 87 people who had received an mRNA vaccine booster shot after a vaccination with the whole virion CoronaVac vaccine were included in the study. None of these groups showed any sign of a rise in autoantibodies.
Other research has found that natural immunity gained from a SARS-CoV-2 infection was as good as vaccination or better, but this study has added to the debate, showing that there may be other benefits to vaccination besides a lower risk of illness, death, or long COVID.
"This study underscores the advantages of vaccines in generating protective immunity to the virus rather than relying on infection to do so," said co-corresponding study author Akiko Iwasaki, PhD, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and Yale Professor.
Sources: Yale University, Nature Communications
