Real-World Effectiveness of COVID-19 Vaccines against Severe Outcomes during the Period of Omicron Predominance in Thailand: A Test-Negative Nationwide Case–Control Study
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Abstract
Due to the widespread Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 in Thailand, the effectiveness
of COVID-19 vaccines has become a major issue. The primary objective of this study
is to examine the real-world effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines based on secondary
data acquired under normal circumstances in a real-world setting, to protect against
treatment with invasive ventilation of pneumonia during January to April 2022, a period
when Omicron was predominant. We conducted a nationwide test-negative case–control
study. The case and control were matched with a ratio of 1:4 in terms of age, date
of specimen collection, and hospital collection specimen and the odds ratio was calculated
using conditional logistic regression. Overall, there was neither a distinction between
mix-and-match regimens and homologous mRNA regimens against severe symptoms, nor was
there a decline of the protective effect over the study period. The third and fourth
dose boosters with ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 or mRNA vaccines provided high levels of protection
against severe outcomes, approximately 87% to 100%, whereas two doses provided a moderate
degree (70%). Thus, this study concludes that current national vaccine strategies
provide favourable protective benefits against the Omicron variant. All Thais should
receive at least two doses, while high-risk or vulnerable groups should be administered
at least three doses.
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Omicron (B.1.1.529) variant is highly transmissible with potential immune escape. We conducted a test-negative case–control study to evaluate mRNA-1273 vaccine effectiveness (VE) against infection and hospitalization with Omicron or Delta. The large, diverse study population included 26,683 SARS-CoV-2 test-positive cases with variants determined by S gene target failure status (16% Delta and 84% Omicron). The two-dose VE against Omicron infection at 14–90 days was 44.0% (95% confidence interval, 35.1–51.6%) but declined quickly. The three-dose VE was 93.7% (92.2–94.9%) and 86.0% (78.1–91.1%) against Delta infection and 71.6% (69.7–73.4%) and 47.4% (40.5–53.5%) against Omicron infection at 14–60 days and >60 days, respectively. The three-dose VE was 29.4% (0.3–50.0%) against Omicron infection in immunocompromised individuals. The three-dose VE against hospitalization with Delta or Omicron was >99% across the entire study population. Our findings demonstrate high, durable three-dose VE against Delta infection but lower effectiveness against Omicron infection, particularly among immunocompromised people. However, three-dose VE of mRNA-1273 was high against hospitalization with Delta and Omicron variants.
To the Editor: In this open-label, nonrandomized clinical study, we assessed the immunogenicity and safety of a fourth dose of either BNT162b2 (Pfizer–BioNTech) or mRNA-1273 (Moderna) administered 4 months after the third dose in a series of three BNT162b2 doses (ClinicalTrials.gov numbers, NCT05231005 and NCT05230953; the protocol is available with the full text of this letter at NEJM.org). Of the 1050 eligible health care workers enrolled in the Sheba HCW COVID-19 Cohort, 1,2 154 received the fourth dose of BNT162b2 and, 1 week later, 120 received mRNA-1273. For each participant, two age-matched controls were selected from the remaining eligible participants (Fig. S1 in the Supplementary Appendix, available at NEJM.org). After the fourth dose, both messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines induced IgG antibodies against the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) receptor-binding domain (Figure 1A) and increased neutralizing antibody titers (Fig. S3); each measure was increased by a factor of 9 to 10, to titers that were slightly higher than those achieved after the third dose, with no significant difference between the two vaccines. Concurrently, antibody levels in the control group continued to wane (Table S5). Both vaccines induced an increase in live neutralization of the B.1.1.529 (omicron) variant and other viral strains by a factor of approximately 10 (Figure 1B), similar to the response after the third dose. 3 We found that the fourth dose did not lead to substantial adverse events despite triggering mild systemic and local symptoms in the majority of recipients (Fig. S2 and Table S4A and S4B). Because of the extremely high infection incidence and meticulous active surveillance with weekly SARS-CoV-2 polymerase-chain-reaction testing, we were also able to assess vaccine efficacy with a Poisson regression model (see the Supplementary Appendix). Overall, 25.0% of the participants in the control group were infected with the omicron variant, as compared with 18.3% of the participants in the BNT162b2 group and 20.7% of those in the mRNA-1273 group. Vaccine efficacy against any SARS-CoV-2 infection was 30% (95% confidence interval [CI], −9 to 55) for BNT162b2 and 11% (95% CI, −43 to 44) for mRNA-1273 (Figure 1C). Most infected health care workers reported negligible symptoms, both in the control group and the intervention groups. However, most of the infected participants were potentially infectious, with relatively high viral loads (nucleocapsid gene cycle threshold, ≤25) (Table S6). Vaccine efficacy was estimated to be higher for the prevention of symptomatic disease (43% for BNT162b2 and 31% for mRNA-1273) (Fig. S4). Limitations of the study include its nonrandomized design and the 1-week difference between enrollment in the two intervention groups, generating potential biases. To overcome this, we assessed each intervention group separately and used a Poisson model accounting for calendar time. In addition, despite similar requests for weekly SARS-CoV-2 testing, adherence was slightly lower in the control group. We did not sequence the infecting virus and cannot be absolutely certain that all cases were caused by the omicron variant; however, during the study period, omicron accounted for 100% of the isolates that were typed. Finally, our cohort was too small to allow for accurate determination of vaccine efficacy. However, within the wide confidence intervals of our estimates, vaccine efficacy against symptomatic disease was 65% at most. Our data provide evidence that a fourth dose of mRNA vaccine is immunogenic, safe, and somewhat efficacious (primarily against symptomatic disease). A comparison of the initial response to the fourth dose with the peak response to a third dose did not show substantial differences in humoral response or in levels of omicron-specific neutralizing antibodies. Along with previous data showing the superiority of a third dose to a second dose, 4 our results suggest that maximal immunogenicity of mRNA vaccines is achieved after three doses and that antibody levels can be restored by a fourth dose. Furthermore, we observed low vaccine efficacy against infections in health care workers, as well as relatively high viral loads suggesting that those who were infected were infectious. Thus, a fourth vaccination of healthy young health care workers may have only marginal benefits. Older and vulnerable populations were not assessed.
The Omicron variant is rapidly becoming the dominant SARS-CoV-2 virus circulating globally. It is important to define reductions in virus neutralizing activity in the serum of convalescent or vaccinated individuals to understand potential loss of protection against infection by Omicron. We previously established that a 50% plaque reduction neutralization antibody titer (PRNT50) ≥25.6 in our live virus assay corresponded to the threshold for 50% protection from infection against wild-type (WT) SARS-CoV-2. Here we show markedly reduced serum antibody titers against the Omicron variant (geometric mean titer (GMT) < 10) compared to WT virus 3-5 weeks after two doses of BNT162b2 (GMT = 218.8) or CoronaVac vaccine (GMT = 32.5). A BNT162b2 booster dose elicited Omicron PRNT50 titers ≥25.6 in 88% of individuals (22 of 25) who previously received 2 doses of BNT162b2 and 80% of individuals (24 of 30) who previously received CoronaVac. However, few (3%) previously infected individuals (1 of 30) or those vaccinated with three doses of CoronaVac (1 of 30) met this threshold. Our findings suggest that countries primarily using CoronaVac vaccines should consider messenger RNA vaccine boosters in response to the spread of Omicron. Studies evaluating the effectiveness of different vaccines against the Omicron variant are urgently needed.
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