WE WILL PROBABLY NEED BOOSTER SHOTS FOR COVID 19

WE WILL PROBABLY NEED BOOSTER SHOTS FOR COVID 19

Subject: Science & tech

Context: As the nation edges closer to President Joe Biden’s goal of a 70% vaccination rate, many people are beginning to wonder how long their protection will last.

Concept:

• For now, scientists are asking a lot of questions about COVID-19 booster shots, but they do not yet have many answers.
• The National Institutes of Health recently announced that it has begun a new clinical trial of people fully vaccinated — with any authorized vaccine — to see whether a booster of the Moderna shot will increase their antibodies and prolong protection against getting infected with the virus.

Booster Dose

• In medical terms, a booster dose is an extra administration of a vaccine after an earlier (primer) dose.
• After initial immunization, a booster injection or booster dose is a re-exposure to the immunizing antigen. It is intended to increase immunity against that antigen back to protective levels, after memory against that antigen has declined through time.
• For example, tetanus shot boosters are often recommended every 10 years, before which memory cells specific against tetanus have lost their function or undergone apoptosis.
• The need for a booster dose following a primary vaccination is evaluated in several ways. One way is to measure the level of antibodies specific against a disease, a few years after the primary dose is given.
• Anamnestic response, the rapid production of antibodies after a stimulus of an antigen, is a typical way to measure the need for a booster dose of a certain vaccine. If the anamnestic response is high after receiving a primary vaccine many years ago, there is most likely little to no need for a booster dose.
• People can also measure the active B and T cell activity against that antigen after a certain amount of time that the primary vaccine was administered, or determine the prevalence of the disease in vaccinated populations