Immune system creates neutralising antibodies against Omicron after three exposures

The results of the study conducted by researchers from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet, Munich's Technical University and Munich Helmholtz were reported by Spanish daily El Mundo.

Their findings apply to those who have received three vaccine shots, those who have recovered from Covid-19 and have been given two shots or the opposite, those with two shots who have later fallen sick.

The study involved 171 persons, of whom 98 became infected with Covid-19 in the spring of 2020 and later received two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and another 73 who had also been vaccinated but had not gotten sick.

Another finding of the study was that the sheer number of antibodies was only weakly correlated with their ability to neutralise the virus.

Instead, what mattered most was the antibodies' ability to bind to the virus and thus neutralise it.

Omicron's many mutations means that more and better antibodies are required in order to fend off infection.

Furthermore, the study showed that an infection had the same effect as a vaccine shot when it came to its effects on the immune system.