Organ Transplant Patients May Boost Antibodies After the Third Dose of Vaccine

According to a new study, a third dose of the coronavirus vaccine could help boost the antibody levels among some Organ transplant recipients who have not had vigorous responses to the typical vaccination schedules.After the second shot of vaccination, participants who had no assessable antibodies demonstrated a significant rise in antibodies upon completion of the third shot.

Furthermore, the rise is evident amongst at least one-third of the participants. The conclusions were published on Monday in the journal called Annals of Internal Medicine.Organ transplant receivers may not have a suitable response to coronavirus vaccines because they already take drugs and medications to overpower their immune systems. That naturally helps to reduce the risk of the body rejecting new Organ and bound the responses to vaccines.

However, when it comes to Covid-19 vaccines, Dr. Dorry Segev, an author of the study and founder of the Epidemiology Research Group in Organ Transplantation at the Johns Hopkins University, told, they don’t really have a good sense about the levels that one needs to have protective immunity.They don’t know if one needs the same off-the-charts levels of antibodies that people with normal immune systems have, as everyone’s immune system reacts differently.

When pharmacological companies tested the coronavirus vaccines in clinical trials last year, they precisely excluded the people who were taking immune suppressant drugs due to potential risks. But for the Organ transplant patients, after a two-dose full vaccine series, there is an overwhelming majority with either no antibodies or low antibodies, as Segev said.