COVID-19 vaccines remain effective despite helminth infections

A preclinical study conducted by a German-Swiss research team, led by scientists from the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF) at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), has found that COVID-19 vaccines remain effective despite immune modulation caused by helminth infections.

Published in Frontiers in Immunology, the study used a mouse model to examine how chronic Schistosoma mansoni infections affect immune responses to two vaccine platforms: the mRNA-based BNT162b2 (Comirnaty) and a recombinant SARS-CoV-2 spike protein vaccine with an aluminum adjuvant.

The researchers observed that the mRNA vaccine elicited strong spike-protein-specific antibody reactions and CD4 T-cell immunity in infected mice, comparable to non-infected control animals. While multifunctional CD8 T-cell responses were reduced in infected subjects, the vaccine-induced protection against the virus was not necessarily impaired by the presence of the parasites.