Even HIV-Positive People Are Protected From Covid-19 After Vaccination, Study Indicates

The study found that people living with HIV form antibodies and mount a T-cell immune response after being administered the Pfizer mRNA vaccine against Covid-19.

It is now well established that vaccines against the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus offer protection to people who are otherwise healthy. Now, researchers have examined how well these vaccines protect people living with HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) against Covid-19, and found that they too mount an immune response.

The experimental study, published in the journal Frontiers in Immunology, was conducted using the BioNTech/Pfizer mRNA vaccine.

It found that people living with HIV form antibodies and mount a T-cell immune response after being administered the vaccine. However, their antibody response was not as strong as in people who were not infected with HIV.

The study was conducted by researchers from the Centre for Sexual Health and Medicine at the university hospital of Ruhr University Bochum. It covered 71 HIV-positive participants who were receiving antiretroviral therapy, and another 20 HIV-negative people as the control group.

All of them were given three doses of the BioNTech, and their immune response was analysed after each shot. “We found that the vaccination leads to this group forming antibodies, too, but less well than is the case for healthy people,” a release from the university quoted Ingo Schmitz, who led the research group, as saying.

What the study found

This gap in the antibody response was, however, reduced after the third shot. “We believe that booster vaccinations should be recommended,” Schmitz was quoted as saying.

The cellular immune response (the response triggered by T-cells) surprised researchers, according to the university. In HIV-positive people, the virus that causes human immunodeficiency (HI) attacks the T-cells, so such patients have reduced quantities of such cells. However, when they were vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2, their T-cell response was found to be as good as the response in HIV-negative people.

T-helper cells last longer than antibodies. Since the T-cell response was the same in HIV-positive and HIV-negative people, the results indicate that the vaccine protects them for an equally long period, the researchers suggested.