A third vaccine dose substantially improves humoral and cellular SARS-CoV-2 immunity in renal transplant recipients with primary humoral non-response

Renal transplant recipients (RTR) are at high risk for fatal Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) [1]. Vaccinations are indispensable to protect this vulnerable population. Unfortunately,>50% of solid organ recipients do not mount antibody responses after two doses of SARS-CoV-2-mRNA vaccines [2,3]. We hypothesized that a third vaccine dose elicits protective humoral and cellular immune response in primary non-responders. Ten RTR under immunosuppression (Suppl. Table 1) without measurable SARS-CoV-2 spike antibodies 4 weeks after a second dose of BNT162b2, received a third vaccine dose (mRNA-1273), which was well tolerated.

Source: Kidney International - September 9, 2021 Category: Urology & Nephrology Authors: Timm H. Westhoff, Felix S. Seibert, Moritz Anft, Arturo Blazquez-Navarro, Sarah Skrzypczyk, Panagiota Zgoura, Toni L. Meister, Stephanie Pfaender, Julian Stumpf, Christian Hugo, Richard Viebahn, Toralf Roch, Ulrik Stervbo, Nina Babel Tags: letters to the editor Source Type: research