According to a study, more than 200 vaccinations against Covid-19 had no negative consequences for a man’s immune system. Researchers from the University and the University Hospital Erlangen examined blood samples from the frequent vaccinator from different years. They found that his immune system not only worked completely normally – certain immune cells and antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 were even significantly more common than in people who had only received three vaccinations, the team said.
However, the man was an isolated case, the researchers emphasized. It was therefore not possible to draw conclusions about the general population or make recommendations from the results. The group published the results of the study in the journal “The Lancet Infectious Diseases”.
The Standing Vaccination Commission (Stiko) recommends that healthy adults up to the age of 59 receive basic immunity from three vaccinations or infections, and that people aged 60 and over and risk groups also receive an annual booster.
217 vaccinations with eight different vaccines
The Erlangen scientists became aware of the man through newspaper reports. According to his own information, he had been vaccinated against Corona 217 times for personal reasons, and 134 vaccinations have been officially confirmed. Eight different vaccines were vaccinated, including different mRNA vaccines, explained Kilian Schober from the Chair of Microbiology and Infection Immunology. When asked, Schober was unable to say what reasons prompted the man to undergo numerous vaccinations.
The researchers invited the affected person to Erlangen to find out whether their immune cells could no longer fight the coronaviruses as effectively due to habituation effects. But they found no evidence of this. During the study, the man was also vaccinated again – for the 217th time. As a result, the number of antibodies increased significantly, the authors of the study described. The immune system was also still effective against other pathogens, as further tests showed.