Study: Older people have more antibodies when they get a second injection of Pfizer later

Older people who received the second Pfizer vaccine after 12 weeks produced more antibodies than people who were three weeks between the two injections. This is evident from a study by researchers at the University of Birmingham.

175 people participated. The research has not yet been peer reviewed and has not yet been published in a scientific journal.

Of the over 80s surveyed who received the so-called booster after twelve weeks, the amount of antibody was finally 3.5 times higher than in their peers who received the second injection after three weeks.

‘Well done’

In the UK, it initially took three weeks between the first and second vaccination. This period has been extended in order to be able to administer the first vaccination more quickly to more people. This also happened in the Netherlands; here, the period between the first and second injection is now six weeks.

“Apparently it worked well,” replies Professor of Vaccinology Anke Huckriede from the University of Groningen. “Of course you would like this to apply to young people as well. More research is needed to do this, and also to see if the results apply to other mRNA vaccines as well.”

Pfizer’s vaccine is an mRNA vaccine, but there are also so-called vector vaccines. They work differently. Want to know more? In this video (from January), Marjolein van Egmond from UMC Amsterdam explains the difference: