Looking at antibody levels of infection naive individuals, we see continued waning in younger age groups* but increases in antibody levels in those aged >50 due to winter booster/4th dose.
With a similar trend seen in previously infected individuals, more noticeable in older age groups where the majority of individuals have antibodies >25,000!
We might need a new category to break up those >25,000....
* - some younger individuals will have boosting due to 4th dose eligibility, e.g. HCWs
Our latest SARS-CoV-2 serosurveillance data for England with @NHSBT (Oct-Dec 2022) is now out in the @UKHSA vaccine surveillance report.
Anti-nucleocapsid seropositivity: 82.5 % (c/f 78.2%)
Anti-spike seropositivity: 99.9% (c/f 99.8%)
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-vaccine-weekly-surveillance-reports
2022 was epic. Eternally grateful to work with a brilliant team and colleagues in UKHSA and our collaborators, doing some fun and exciting science along the way 👩🔬👨🔬
Wishing you all a happy new year. Here's to 2023! 🎉
..and this pool gives some excellent sensitivity (97.14%) and specificity (98.23%), better than individual antigens (some being ~50% sens)
Using this assay we can also perform endpoint titrations to allow quantification of responses to Smallpox vaccine or MPOX infection 👇
Using this data together we also developed a pooled Ag ELISA using commercially available antigens to study poxvirus/vax antibody responses, rather than needing whole MVA
When we looked at antigen responses over time, only some show reactivity, dropping off after dose 1 or 2.
So we made an ELISA using 5 recombinant antigens all pooled together: MPXV antigens B6, B2, E8L and A35, and one VACV antigen B5 (homologue of B6) We see it mirrors the strong antigens when tested individually:
This reinforced that there are analogous antibody responses between vaccinated/MPOX infected, but definitely subtle differences in immunology responses/Ab binding
This was similarly confirmed for neuts by Luca Zaeck & colleagues in their great paper:
Historic smallpox vaccination and monkeypox virus (MPXV) infection elicit MPXV-neutralizing antibodies, but MPXV-neutralizing antibodies are less frequent and of lower magnitude after vaccination with MVA-BN—the vaccine approved and in use for protection against MPXV and smallpox.