Background: Measles is a highly contagious disease presenting a significant risk for unvaccinated infants and adults. Measles vaccination under the age of 12 months provides early protection, but has also been associated with blunting of antibody responses to subsequent measles vaccinations and assumed to have lower vaccine effectiveness.
Methods: Our study included children who received an early measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccination between 6 and 12 months of age (n=79, given in addition to the regular MMR vaccination schedule at 14 months and 9 years) and a group without additional early vaccination (n=44).
National Immunisation Programmes (NIPs) develop historically. Its performance (disease incidences, vaccination coverage) is monitored. Reviewing the schedule as a whole could inform on further optimisation of the programme, i.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: VAccine Study COVID-19 (VASCO) is a cohort study with a 5-year follow-up that was initiated when COVID-19 vaccination was introduced in the Netherlands. The primary objective is to estimate real-world vaccine effectiveness (VE) of COVID-19 vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 infection in the Netherlands, overall and in four subpopulations defined by age and medical risk.
Participants: The cohort consists of 45 547 community-dwelling participants aged 18-85 years who were included irrespective of their COVID-19 vaccination status or intention to get vaccinated.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) were introduced to reduce the spread of SARS-CoV-2. This also resulted in a reduction of notifications of other acute respiratory infections and an altered seasonality when NPIs were lifted. Without circulation of pathogens, waning of antibodies is expected, which is a first indicator of decreased immunity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Previous research has shown that repeated COVID-19 mRNA vaccination leads to a marked increase of SARS-CoV-2 spike-specific serum antibodies of the IgG4 subclass, indicating far-reaching immunoglobulin class switching after booster immunization. Considering that repeated vaccination has been recommended especially for older adults, the aim of this study was to investigate IgG subclass responses in the ageing population and assess their relation with Fc-mediated antibody effector functionality.
Results: Spike S1-specific IgG subclass concentrations (expressed in arbitrary units per mL), antibody-dependent NK cell activation, complement deposition and monocyte phagocytosis were quantified in serum from older adults (n = 38-50, 65-83 years) at one month post-second, -third and -fifth vaccination.