Journal article

Trajectories of seroprevalence and neutralizing activity of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 in Southern Switzerland between July 2020 and July 2021 : an ongoing, prospective population-based cohort study

  • Amati, Rebecca ORCID Institute of Public Health (IPH), Università della Svizzera italiana, Switzerland
  • Piumatti, Giovanni Fondazione Agnelli, Italy
  • Franscella, Giovanni Institute of Public Health (IPH), Università della Svizzera italiana, Switzerland
  • Buttaroni, Peter Facoltà di scienze informatiche, Università della Svizzera italiana, Svizzera
  • Camerini, Anne-Linda ORCID Institute of Public Health (IPH), Università della Svizzera italiana, Switzerland
  • Corna, Laurie Department of Business Economics, Health and Social Care, University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland, Switzerland
  • Levati, Sara Department of Business Economics, Health and Social Care, University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland, Switzerland
  • Fadda, Marta ORCID Institute of Public Health (IPH), Università della Svizzera italiana, Switzerland
  • Fiordelli, Maddalena ORCID Institute of Public Health (IPH), Università della Svizzera italiana, Switzerland
  • Annoni, Anna Maria Institute of Public Health (IPH), Università della Svizzera italiana, Switzerland
  • Bezani, Kleona Institute of Public Health (IPH), Università della Svizzera italiana, Switzerland
  • Amendola, Antonio Department of Business Economics, Health and Social Care, University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland, Switzerland
  • Fragoso Corti, Cristina Institute of Microbiology, University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland, Bellinzona, Switzerland
  • Sabatini, Serena ORCID Institute of Public Health (IPH), Università della Svizzera italiana, Switzerland
  • Kaufmann, Marco Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Prevention Institute, University of Zurich, Switzerland
  • Frei, Anja Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Prevention Institute, University of Zurich, Switzerland
  • Puhan, Milo Alan Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Prevention Institute, University of Zurich, Switzerland
  • Crivelli , Luca ORCID Institute of Public Health (IPH), Università della Svizzera italiana, Switzerland - Department of Business Economics, Health and Social Care, University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland, Manno, Switzerland
  • Albanese, Emiliano ORCID Institute of Public Health (IPH), Università della Svizzera italiana, Switzerland
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  • 2023
Published in:
  • International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. - 2023, vol. 20, p. 3703
English The COVID-19 pandemic continues, and evidence on infection- and vaccine-induced immunity is key. We assessed COVID-19 immunity and the neutralizing antibody response to virus variants across age groups in the Swiss population. Study Design: We conducted a cohort study in representative community-dwelling residents aged five years or older in southern Switzerland (total population 353,343), and we collected blood samples in July 2020 (in adults only, N = 646), November–December 2020 (N = 1457), and June–July 2021 (N = 885). Methods: We used a previously validated Luminex assay to measure antibodies targeting the spike (S) and the nucleocapsid (N) proteins of the virus and a high-throughput cell-free neutralization assay optimized for multiple spike protein variants. We calculated seroprevalence with a Bayesian logistic regression model accounting for the population’s sociodemographic structure and the test performance, and we compared the neutralizing activity between vaccinated and convalescent participants across virus variants. Results: The overall seroprevalence was 7.8% (95% CI: 5.4–10.4) by July 2020 and 20.2% (16.4–24.4) by December 2020. By July 2021, the overall seroprevalence increased substantially to 72.5% (69.1–76.4), with the highest estimates of 95.6% (92.8–97.8) among older adults, who developed up to 10.3 more antibodies via vaccination than after infection compared to 3.7 times more in adults. The neutralizing activity was significantly higher for vaccine-induced than infection-induced antibodies for all virus variants (all p values < 0.037). Conclusions: Vaccination chiefly contributed to the reduction in immunonaive individuals, particularly those in older age groups. Our findings on the greater neutralizing activity of vaccine-induced antibodies than infection-induced antibodies are greatly informative for future vaccination campaigns.
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Language
  • English
Classification
Medicine
License
CC BY
Open access status
gold
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Persistent URL
https://n2t.net/ark:/12658/srd1331793
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