Study suggests people living with HIV may need third injection of COVID-19 vaccine

“Many studies have looked at the response to vaccines in people who have had a transplant, on dialysis, or who have an autoimmune disease or cancer, but there are very few studies looking at how people living with it respond to it. HIV. ”

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Researchers at the Center hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal (CRCHUM) research center believe that a third dose of the vaccine to fight the COVID-19 virus may be necessary for some people living with HIV.

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In the United States, authorities are encouraging the administration of a third dose of the COVID vaccine for people who are immunocompromised. But according to Dr. Cécile Tremblay, “There are many studies that have looked at the response to vaccines in people who have had a transplant, who are on dialysis, or who have autoimmune disease or cancer, but there are very few studies examining the response of people living with HIV.

This is what prompted the team of the microbiologist and researcher of the CRCHUM to recruit 100 HIV-positive people to check their immunogenicity after receiving the Moderna vaccine.

“We measure the antibodies early on, before we get the first dose of the vaccine, and then we measure the antibodies four weeks after we get the first dose, and we’ll continue to monitor them for the long term,” Tremblay said.

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The results were compared to a control group made up of health workers.

The first results suggest that the response to the vaccine of people living with HIV is comparable to that of the general population. But at the same time, the researchers noted “that there was a much less pronounced response from people with low CD4 + counts.”

CD4 + lymphocytes are the cells that have a major impact on the production of antibodies.

“If the trend continues after the second dose, these results support the hypothesis that the immune response increases with more doses,” said Andrés Finzi, researcher at the CRCHUM and professor at the University of Montreal.

So it is people living with HIV who have low CD4 + counts who may need a third dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.

The article by CRCHUM researchers has been published by bioRxiv, while waiting to see if it will be accepted by the editors of a scientific publication.