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. 2024 Nov 21;16(12):1805.
doi: 10.3390/v16121805.

COVID-19 Vaccinations, Infections, and Outcomes Among 784 People Living with HIV

Keren Mahlab-Guri  1   2 , Irina Komarova  2 , Laliv Kadar  1   2 , Shay Nemet  1   2 , Ramon Cohen  1   2 , Sara Radian-Sade  2 , Achiel Tova  2 , Alex Guri  1   2 , Shira Rosenberg-Bezalel  1   2 , Daniel Elbirt  1   2
Affiliations

COVID-19 Vaccinations, Infections, and Outcomes Among 784 People Living with HIV

Keren Mahlab-Guri et al. Viruses. .

Abstract

Introduction: Variants of COVID-19 are responsible for 700 million infections and 7 million deaths worldwide. Vaccinations have high efficiency in preventing infection and secondary benefits of reducing COVID-19 hospital admissions, attenuating disease severity and duration of illness. Conflicting reports were published regarding COVID-19 among PLWH.

Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate COVID-19 morbidity, hospitalization, and the magnitude of immunological response to sequential BNT 162b2 mRNA vaccines in PLWH regarding demographic and clinical factors.

Results: Our retrospective study included 784 PLWH who had at least one anti- SARS-CoV-2 antibody test between March 2021 and October 2021. Half of our patients (392) had CD4 cell counts above 500 cells/µL, 40.2% (315) had 200 < CD4 < 500 cells/µL and only 9.8% (77) had CD4 < 200 cells/µL at their last laboratory workup. The mean age was 50.2 ± 12.2 years. About 90% of our patients were given at least two doses of the BNT 162b2 Pfizer vaccines; about 60% received three doses of the vaccine. About a quarter of our patients (27.6%) had COVID-19 infection. Only six patients required hospital admission. All six patients recovered from COVID-19 infection. Titers of COVID-19 antibodies were lower for patients with CD4 cell counts of less than 200 cells/µL in the first, second, and third serological tests with statistical significance. In a multinomial logistic regression, the influence of other factors such as age, sex, and previous COVID-19 infection on first COVID-19 antibody titers was not significant.

Conclusions: PLWH are responsive to COVID-19 vaccines. As was expected, patients with higher CD4 cell counts had higher titers of COVID-19 antibodies and lower hospitalization rate. Age, sex, and previous COVID-19 infection did not significantly affect antibody titers according to our study. Larger prospective studies with control groups are needed to further characterize immunologic response to COVID-19 vaccination among PLWH.

Keywords: AIDS; COVID-19; COVID-19 mRNA vaccine; HIV; vaccination response.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Antibody titers over time for 46 patients with three measurements. * p < 0.001.
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