A study on the immune responses of the two COVID-19 mRNA vaccines found that the Moderna vaccine created twice as many antibodies as the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
The researchers analyzed the antibody levels of health workers in Belgium after receiving both doses of vaccines, including 688 vaccinated with Moderna and 959 who received shots from Pfizer, in the study published in Journal of the American Medical Association Monday.
Among those who had not been previously infected, Moderna receptors had an average of 2,881 units per milliliter, compared to Pfizer receptors which had 1,108 units per milliliter.
Participants who previously contracted COVID-19 reported higher antibody levels, raising the overall average among all participants to 3,836 units per milliliter for Modern and 1,444 units per milliliter for Pfizer.
According to the study, the levels of antibodies in which they received Moderna were higher in infected, uninfected and in all age categories.
The researchers said the difference in antibody levels could be attributed to the higher mRNA content within the Modern vaccine and the longer interval between the first and second shots. Moderna’s second vaccine is given four weeks after the first vaccine, while the Pfizer vaccine is given three weeks after the initial vaccine.
Antibody testing was performed before vaccination and six to ten weeks after the second dose. The study found that levels were negatively correlated with age in those who had not been previously infected, with the highest antibody levels among those under 35 years of age.
Antibody response to vaccines among> 1600 health workers:
–@Moderna_tx has significantly outperformed Pfizer
(mean titer 3836 vs 1444 U / mL)
–Povid anterior superior to any previous infection
(medium title 9461 vs 1613 U / ML) https://t.co/QurRfa68Xi… @JAMA_actual pic.twitter.com/x0DhN95thI– Eric Topol (@EricTopol) August 30, 2021
This research follows a prepress study published before the peer review earlier this month that suggested that the effectiveness of the Modern vaccine dropped to 76% and the effectiveness of the Pfizer shot fell to 42% in July when the delta variant had prevailed in the United States.
That preliminary Mayo Clinic study emphasized that both vaccines are still highly protective against serious infections and diseases. The research was also accompanied by a warning that early findings “should not be used to guide clinical practice.”
In the United States, more than 94 million people are fully vaccinated with the Pfizer-BioNTech trait and more than 65 million are fully vaccinated with the Modern vaccine. Another 14 million have received the single dose from Johnson & Johnson, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).