COVID-19: adult surveillance
Description of UKHSA adult surveillance programmes for COVID-19.
Applies to England
CONSENSUS: COVID-19 vaccine responses after extended immunisation schedules
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) is undertaking this audit to assess the antibody levels offered by the extended 12-week schedule, compared to a 2 to 3 week interval, and the booster programme in people aged 50 years and over. Participants will provide blood samples at specific time points to measure the antibodies provided by the COVID-19 vaccine against the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. Some participants will also provide extra blood at some of the visits for additional cellular immunity tests. Data from the audit will provide important information about the level of immunity provided by the primary vaccine and booster doses. Further information is available in the .
The results from CONSENSUS are regularly reported to the Joint Committee for Vaccines and Immunisations (JCVI) and have been published (1,2,3). A summary of findings include:
- a single dose of Pfizer/BioNtech vaccine resulted in > 94% seropositivity after 3 weeks in naïve individuals using the Roche Spike antibody assay, while 2 doses produced very high spike antibody levels, significantly higher than convalescent sera from mild-to-moderate PCR-confirmed adult cases
- antibody levels 14 to 35 days after dose 2 are higher in BNT162b2 recipients with an extended vaccine interval (65 to 84 days) compared with those vaccinated with a standard (19 to 29 days) interval
- post-booster samples demonstrate very high antibody responses following a booster with Pfizer, irrespective of vaccine or schedule used for primary immunisation.
References
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Subbarao and others. Robust antibody responses in 70 to 80-year-olds 3 weeks after the first or second doses of Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, United Kingdom, January to February 2021, Eurosurveillance, 2021.
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Ireland and others. Serological responses to COVID-19 booster vaccine in England, medRxiv, 2021.
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Amirthalingam and others. Serological responses and vaccine effectiveness for extended COVID-19 vaccine schedules in England, Nature Communications, 2021.