A new study has suggested that the Pfizer-BioNTech coronfirus vaccine may be less effective in obese people. The study by a group of Italian researchers said that obese health care workers who received the coronavirus vaccine were unable to produce as many antibodies as their healthy peers. The researchers said that health care workers with obesity were only taking about half the amount of antibodies in response to a second dose of the injection.
Although the study still needs peer review, the researchers have stated, however, that the data may mean that people with obesity need an extra dose increase to make sure they are adequately protected from the virus. They noted that a previous study has suggested that obesity increases the risk of death from coronavirus by nearly 50 percent as well as increasing the risk of hospitalization by 113 percent. They also said this could be because people with obesity have other underlying conditions, such as heart disease or type 2 diabetes, which increase their risk from coronavirus.
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Aldo Venuti, of the Istituti Fisioterapici Ospitalieri in Rome, evaluated antibody response after two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in 248 health care workers. Venuti noted that, seven days after receiving the second dose, 99.5 percent of them had developed an antibody response, and this response was greater than that recorded in people who survived the virus. . Venuti said that because obesity is a major risk factor for morbidity and mortality for patients with coronavirus, it is imperative to design an effective vaccination program in this subgroup.
In the study, Venuti wrote, “While further studies are needed, these data may have a significant impact on the development of vaccine strategies for Covid-19, particularly in obese people. If our data were confirmed by larger studies, an overdose of the vaccine or a higher dose for obese people could be options to be evaluated in this population. ”
Danny Altmann, a professor of immunology at Imperial College London, also said the researchers always knew that BMI was a major predictor of a poor immune response to vaccines, so this paper is “definitely interesting”. He said the research confirms that vaccine populations are not equal to immune populations, especially in a country with high obesity, and confirms the critical need for long – term immunization monitoring programs.
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