A study by the Macau University of Science and Technology’s (MUST) Faculty of Medicine found that those having the BioNTech mRNA vaccine as their third booster dose “produces more neutralising antibodies against Omicron variants”, the private tertiary education institution said in a statement on Friday.
The study, the statement noted, was led by Faculty of Medicine Assistant Professor Daniel Baptista-Hon and Zhuhai People’s Hospital and The First Affiliated Hospital of the MUST Faculty of Medicine’s Director Prof Li-Gong Lu (aka Lu Li-gong). The study highlights “the importance of vaccination in our response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic” with an impact factor of 35.13. It has been published in Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy.
With Macau’s current unprecedented COVID-19 outbreak caused by the Omicron variant, the statement pointed out that vaccinations “are one of the most important ways to reduce infection and death from COVID-19”. The statement added that vaccinations “stimulate our bodies to produce antibodies against SARS-CoV-2”, with some of the antibodies being “‘neutralising’ – they prevent SARS-CoV-2 from infecting our cells altogether and stop us from falling ill”.
According to the statement, the research found that in people who have received two doses of the inactivated virus vaccine, and those who received the BioNTech mRNA vaccine as a booster “produce more neutralising antibodies effective against the Omicron BA.2 variant”.
The statement quoted Prof Baptista-Hon as saying: “The results of our study show that the choice of the booster shot is very important, and the data in our study is in line with the recommendations of the Health Bureau of the Macao SAR Government that people should consider the mRNA vaccine as their booster dose”.
The statement said that the publication is part of the ongoing Macau Antibody Protection Study (MAPS), a multidisciplinary collaboration between the Faculty of Medicine and MUST’s University Hospital, Zhuhai People’s Hospital and First Affiliated Hospital of Faculty of Medicine MUST, Guangzhou Medical University, and Fosun Pharmaceuticals. It was initiated in February 2022.
MAPS is led by Chair Professor Kang Zhang and Prof Baptista-Hon and has the overall aim of evaluating vaccine protection effectiveness in Macau. The statement said that MAPS is recruiting participants from Macau who have had one, two or three doses of the available vaccines in the city or the mainland. However, in line with COVID-19 prevention measures, the recruitment is currently on hold.
The article can be viewed at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41392-022-01062-3.
This undated handout photo provided by the Macau University of Science and Technology (MUST) on Friday shows the university’s Faculty of Medicine’s Assistant Professor Daniel Baptista-Hon.
This image provided by MUST shows that “those who receive the BioNTech mRNA vaccine as a booster produce more neutralising antibodies effective against the Omicron BA.2 variant”.
