A team of researchers at the University of Michigan analyzed more than 80 studies to assess the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccine doses beyond the primary series. Their findings, based on observations of 150 million patients, support the effectiveness of both monovalent and bivalent boosters in preventing severe outcomes and underscore the importance of annual vaccine updates. is emphasized.
New research highlights important benefits of monovalent and bivalent COVID-19 (new coronavirus infection) Promotes the prevention of hospitalization and death, and advocates for regular updates of vaccines in response to outbreaks. virus Subspecies.
First booster, second booster, monovalent, bivalent. Exactly, SARS-CoV-2 Viral strains, vaccines to fight the virus are constantly changing and possibly causing confusion.
The University of Michigan, led by Sabir Mee and Bramah Mukherjee, aims to better understand vaccine types and their effectiveness, and examine methods used globally to study vaccine effectiveness. A group of researchers evaluated approximately 80 studies and 150 studies. Millions of observations from patient datasets around the world to understand the different designs and methods used to study the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccine doses after primary series vaccination We have collected the results.
We then applied all the methods used in those studies to Michigan Medicine patient data.
Meah is a graduate of the School of Public Health with a master's degree in biostatistics and is currently a biostatistician in the Department of Urology at the University of Michigan Medical School. Mr. Mukherjee is John D. Kalbfleisch Professor of Biostatistics at the University, Siobhan is Professor of Public Health at Harlow College, and Assistant Vice President for Research in the Office of the Vice President for Research.
“What we have been able to create is a repository of methods that can be applied to future annual vaccinations,” Mukherjee said. “Obtaining robust and reproducible results and reliable estimates of vaccine effectiveness is critical to cementing public trust and combating misinformation.”
The full text of their study is available below scientific progress. Mia will explain further.
Can you explain your findings regarding bivalent and monovalent boosters from the patient data you reviewed?
Our study evaluated three different vaccination regimens: 1) a monovalent booster targeting the original strain, 2) his second monovalent booster using the original formulation, and 3) a new one updated in fall 2022 to target the new Omicron mutant strain. Bivalent vaccine. We confirm that all sequential vaccinations provide significant benefit in terms of preventing hospitalization and death, and estimates from Omicron-specific vaccine doses for fall 2022 are consistent with global studies we reviewed. It was more powerful than before.
These findings support the practice of regularly updating COVID-19 vaccines to address currently circulating variants. Fortunately, the United States and many other countries, such as European Union countries, appear to have annually updated COVID-19 vaccines. The fall 2022 vaccine has already been superseded by a new updated vaccine for fall 2023, which, if not already available, will be available in early 2024 targeting the even newer XBB1.5 omicron variant.
We expect our conclusions about the utility of updated vaccines to generalize to any updated coronavirus vaccine, not just the bivalent vaccine in fall 2022, but we expect that the actual effectiveness of the annual vaccine will be additional. monitoring and research are still needed. We hope that our research results will be useful for these studies. What we have been able to do so far is establish an analytical pipeline that allows researchers to study vaccine efficacy for future annual vaccine formulations.
Can you explain what biostatistics brings to the table on this topic?
Biostatistics and epidemiology provide a toolbox for the complex process of evaluating vaccine efficacy in scientific observational studies. However, there are a number of different approaches, both in study design and methodology, that researchers have taken in vaccine efficacy studies conducted around the world, which is why we provide a review of their methodologies and results, as well as subsequent case studies. This is what motivated me to do it. These methods use data from Michigan Medicine.
Very fortunately, a key finding of our study was that vaccine efficacy estimates were relatively stable and did not depend significantly on method selection for hospitalization and mortality outcomes. . Although this favorable characteristic was not observed regarding infection outcomes, there is no doubt that hospitalization and mortality will become more important points of study as we move further into the epidemic phase of the pandemic.
Given what your research says about the power of COVID-19 boosters to prevent severe disease and hospitalization, what do you hope this study tells the public?
The coronavirus vaccines investigated in our study, including the fall 2022 bivalent vaccine, provided strong protection against hospitalization and death. Although we expect this pattern to continue with additional annual vaccines approved by the FDA, continued research on future vaccines is warranted and our findings indicate that these future provides some important considerations for research.
Reference: “Design and Analysis of Heterogeneity in Observational Studies of COVID-19 Booster Effects: A Review and Case Study” Sabir Meah, Xu Shi, Lars G. Fritsche, Maxwell Salvatore, Abram Wagner, Emily By T. Martin, Bhramar Mukherjee, 20 December 2023 scientific progress.
DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adj3747
Co-authors: Xu Shi, Lars Fritsche, Maxwell Salvatore, Abram Wagner, and Emily Martin, all of UM. Their interdisciplinary collaboration is part of the School of Public Health's IDEAS, Interdisciplinary Discovery, Engagement + Action for Society.
