Argentina-Based Study Finds COVID-19 Vaccine Expeditiously Declines in Immunocompromised Children

In immunological memory to COVID-19 vaccines in immunocompromised and immunocompetent children, Lourdes Arruvito, Faculty of Medicine, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina and colleagues hypothesized that immunocompromised (IC, n=45) children would exhibit weaker and shorter-lived immune responses to COVID-19 vaccines compared to healthy children (HC, n=79). Testing this question, the investigators designed a cohort study assessing immunological parameters in IC and HC children 13-17 months after receiving two or three doses of COVID-19 vaccines (BBIBP-CorV and/or BNT162b2). So, what did the Argentina-based collaborators find?
First, most children maintained some level of seropositivity after two doses. However, IC children displayed lower neutralizing antibody titers against both the original Wuhan strain and the Omicron BA.5 variant compared to HC, particularly those vaccinated with BBIBP-CorV, the SinoPharm COVID-19 vaccine developed in China.