A World Health Organisation (WHO) backed study has recently shown that a person with hybrid immunity has less than a 95% chance of developing severe COVID infection as compared to those who are unvaccinated and uninfected. And, hence ‘this demonstrates how critical it is to get vaccinated even after people have had COVID’. This comes amid a sudden surge in cases globally, led by Omicron variant BF.7 and XBB.1.5.
The study, which has been published in Lancet, said that previous coronavirus infection and hybrid immunity both provided greater and more sustained protection against the omicron variant than vaccination alone.
Individuals with hybrid immunity had the highest magnitude and durability of protection against all outcomes; protection against severe disease remained higher than 95% until the end of available follow-up at 11 months after hybrid immunity with primary series vaccination and 4 months after hybrid immunity with booster vaccination, it also said.
It noted that waning protection for both infection-induced and vaccine-induced immunity against COVID is still a concern and so “wider vaccination among populations (eg, mass vaccination) could be timed for rollout before periods of expected increased incidence, such as the winter season.”
At the individual level, these results can be combined with knowledge of a person’s infection and vaccination history. A 6-month delay in a booster dose might be justified after the last infection or vaccination for individuals with a known history of previous infection and full primary series vaccination, the study also said
…Not promoting infection: WHO
However, WHO official Maria Van Kerkhove has pointed out that speaking about hybrid immunity is not about promoting infection. “I have said it many times before and I will keep saying it: do what you can to avoid infection/reinfection”.
Protecting yourself by seeking the very thing that harms you is extremely dangerous. Even if you don’t get severely ill with COVID-19 and die, you could pass it on to someone who will, she adds
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