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. 2022 Jul;27(30):2200559.
doi: 10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2022.27.30.2200559.

COVID-19 vaccination and BA.1 breakthrough infection induce neutralising antibodies which are less efficient against BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron variants, Israel, March to June 2022

Limor Kliker  1   2 , Neta Zuckerman  1 , Nofar Atari  1 , Noam Barda  3 , Mayan Gilboa  3 , Ital Nemet  1 , Bayan Abd Elkader  1 , Ilana S Fratty  1   4 , Hanaa Jaber  3 , Ella Mendelson  1   2 , Sharon Alroy-Preis  4 , Yitshak Kreiss  3 , Gili Regev-Yochay  2   3 , Michal Mandelboim  1   2
Affiliations

COVID-19 vaccination and BA.1 breakthrough infection induce neutralising antibodies which are less efficient against BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron variants, Israel, March to June 2022

Limor Kliker et al. Euro Surveill. 2022 Jul.

Abstract

This work evaluated neutralising antibody titres against wild type (WT) SARS-CoV-2 and four Omicron variants (BA.1, BA.2, BA.4 and BA.5) in healthcare workers who had breakthrough BA.1 infection. Omicron breakthrough infection in individuals vaccinated three or four times before infection resulted in increased neutralising antibodies against the WT virus. The fourth vaccine dose did not further improve the neutralising efficiency over the third dose against all Omicron variants, especially BA.4 and BA.5. An Omicron-specific vaccine may be indicated.

Keywords: BA.4/5; BNT162b2 vaccination; COVID-19; Neutralizing; Omicron.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interests: None declared.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
SARS-CoV-2 variants, Israel, March–June 2022 (n = 49,810)
Figure 2
Figure 2
Microneutralisation of different SARS-CoV-2 variants, sera from healthcare workers in relation to vaccination and BA.1 infection, Israel, March–June 2022 (n = 41)
Figure 3
Figure 3
The fold change of SARS-CoV-2 neutralising antibody titres in sera from healthcare workers after COVID-19 vaccination and BA.1 infection, Israel, March–June 2022 (n = 41)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment in

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Supplementary concepts