A study indicates that alternating arms could produce a more powerful immune response. The researchers monitored responses to the first two doses of the antiviral vaccines. COVID-19. Those who alternated arms showed a small increase in immunity against those who received both doses in the same arm.
“Right now, I’m not making recommendations, because we need to understand this much better,” he warned. Marcel Curlindoctor specialized in infectious diseases of the Oregon Health & Science University who led the study, adding that, however, “all things being equal, we should consider alternating arms.”
In the study by Curlin and his colleagues, repeated readings of antibody levels were taken in 54 pairs of university employees; classified by age, gender and time elapsed after vaccination. Participants were randomly chosen to receive the second dose in the same arm as the first or in the other. The researchers excluded anyone who had become infected with Covid during the study.
The results were published in The Journal of Clinical Investigation, revealing that alternating arms increased the levels of antibodies in the blood up to four times. The immune response was stronger both against the original coronavirus and against the omicron variant, which emerged about a year after the authorization of the first vaccines against covid.
“It is a consistent and statistically significant effect, it is quite large and it appears to be very long-lasting,” Curlin told The New York Times. In a German study, carried out last summer, it was shown that inoculating the same arm each time could generate a better immune response. However, the pattern slowly changed over subsequent months to higher antibody levels in those who alternated arms.
“What you see is an option that I had in mind as a possibility, so, in some ways, it is interesting that you do see this type of change in the effects,” he stated. Martina Sester, an immunologist at Saarland University in Saarbrücken, Germany. The German researcher concluded that alternating arms at each dose could be “one of many measures that you could easily adopt to perhaps lead to a successful immune response.”
by RN
Image gallery
