New research has confirmed the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine is generating the same immune response among Pasifika, Māori and Pākehā populations.
Malaghan Institute clinical immunologist Dr Maia Brewerton and her team are studying a broad range of New Zealanders, with a strong representation of Māori and Pasifika communities, and their immune response one month after receiving the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine.
She told Breakfast they were able to look at a subset of the population who "were really what we call 'infection naive' - so they’d never seen the virus - and look at their immune response, which I think is important for most Kiwis because we’re all in the same boat”.
Brewerton said the ongoing study has confirmed that people receive a “really excellent [immune] response”, adding that there is “no difference in Māori and Pasifika compared to non-Māori and Pasifika”.
“It offers some reassurance to our people that we’ve looked - we’ve looked for you guys - and made sure that this vaccine works,” she said.
She said another important finding was that “as you get older, everything just gets a bit worn out so we get a bit tired” - including your immune system.
“You get this phenomenon called immune senescence and so as you’re older, what we saw in this study is that you still had a good antibody response but it wasn’t as good as younger age groups and that’s why we, early on, took those boosters to our older [aged 75-plus] populations but they still had a good response.”
Brewerton said it also found people with type 2 diabetes had an “adequate antibody response but it was a bit lower”.
“If we see a signal that the type 2 diabetics are seeing that immunity fall off sooner, then that would inform us as to what to do with the booster for that population as well.”
The study will continue to look at people’s immune response to the vaccine in the months ahead as the virus continues to change and new variants emerge.
“The virus keeps changing. It’s continually trying to outsmart us so it’s this sort of to and fro between our immune system and a virus that’s evolving to change.
“What we’ll be able to do with this cohort of patients is look at their antibody response to any new variants as they come along and again, we’ve seen in this that the neutralising antibodies - the antibodies that can stop that virus from getting in and infecting us - are lower with Omicron than we saw with the earlier variants.
“It doesn’t mean it will be the same for future variants but with this cohort of patients, we’ll have a bit more information.”
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