Cell-Mediated Immune Response after COVID 19 Vaccination in Patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease

IntroductionMost patients with IBD mount an antibody response to mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, but few studies have evaluated the cell mediated immune response (CMIR). MethodsWe performed a prospective study (HERCULES) to evaluate CMIR among patients with IBD and healthy controls (HC) after completion of the primary series of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. ResultsOne hundred 158 patients with IBD and 20 HC were enrolled. The majority (89%) of IBD patients developed a CMIR which was not different than HC (94%, p=0.6667). There was no significant difference (p=0.5488) in CMIR response between those not immunosuppressed (median 255 Spike T cells/million PBMC, IQR 146, 958) and immunosuppressed (median 377, IQR 123, 1440). There was also no correlation between antibody responses and CMIR (p=0.5215) DiscussionMost patients with IBD achieved CMIR to a COVID-19 vaccine. Future studies are needed evaluating sustained CMIR and clinical outcomes.

Three doses of COVID-19 mRNA vaccination are safe based on adverse events reported in electronic health records

Recent reports on waning of COVID-19 vaccine induced immunity have led to the approval and roll-out of additional dose and booster vaccinations. At risk individuals are receiving additional vaccine dose(s), in addition to the regimen that was tested in clinical trials. The risks and the adverse event profiles associated with these additional vaccine doses are currently not well understood. Here, we performed a retrospective study analyzing vaccine-associated adverse events using electronic health records (EHRs) of individuals that have received three doses of mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines (n = 47,999). By comparing symptoms reported in 2-week time periods after each vaccine dose and in a 2-week period before the 1st vaccine dose, we assessed the risk associated with 3rd dose vaccination, for both BNT162b2 and mRNA-1273. Reporting of severe adverse events remained low after the 3rd vaccine dose, with rates of pericarditis (0.01%, 0%-0.02% 95% CI), anaphylaxis (0.00%, 0%-0.01% 95% CI), myocarditis (0.00%, 0%-0.01% 95% CI), and cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (no cases), consistent with earlier studies. Significantly more individuals (p-value < 0.05) report low-severity adverse events after their 3rd dose compared with after their 2nd dose, including fatigue (4.92% after 3rd dose vs 3.47% after 2nd dose), lymphadenopathy (2.89% vs 2.07%), nausea (2.62% vs 2.04%), headache (2.47% vs 2.07%), arthralgia (2.12% vs 1.70%), myalgia (1.99% vs 1.63%), diarrhea (1.70% vs 1.24%), fever (1.11% vs 0.81%), vomiting (1.10% vs 0.80%), and chills (0.47% vs 0.36%). Our results show that although 3rd dose vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 infection led to increased reporting of low-severity adverse events, risk of severe adverse events remained comparable to the standard 2-dose regime. This study provides support for the safety of 3rd vaccination doses of individuals that are at high-risk of severe COVID-19 and breakthrough infection.

Durability analysis of the highly effective BNT162b2 vaccine against COVID-19

SARS-CoV-2 breakthrough infections have been increasingly reported in fully vaccinated individuals. We conducted a test-negative case-control study to assess the durability of protection after full vaccination with BNT162b2, defined as 14 days after the second dose, against polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-confirmed symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection, in a national medical practice between February 1, 2021 and August 22, 2021. We fit conditional logistic regression (CLR) models stratified on residential county and calendar time of testing to assess the association between time elapsed since vaccination and the odds of symptomatic infection or non-COVID-19 hospitalization (negative control), adjusted for several covariates. The primary population included 652 individuals who had a positive symptomatic test after full vaccination with BNT162b2 (cases) and 5,946 individuals with at least one negative symptomatic test after full vaccination (controls). The adjusted odds of symptomatic infection were higher 120 days after full vaccination versus at the date of full vaccination (Odds Ratio [OR]: 3.21, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.33-7.74). Importantly, the odds of infection were still lower 150 days after the first BNT162b2 dose as compared to 4 days after the first dose (OR: 0.3, 95% CI: 0.19-0.45), when immune protection approximates the unvaccinated status. Low rates of COVID-19 associated hospitalization or death in this cohort precluded analyses of these severe outcomes. The odds of experiencing a non-COVID-19 hospitalization decreased with time since vaccination, suggesting a possible underestimation of waning protection by this approach due to confounding factors. Taken together, these data constitute an early signal for waning protection against symptomatic illness while also providing reassurance that BNT162b2 continues to protect against symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection several months after full vaccination. Continued surveillance of COVID-19 vaccine durability, particularly against severe disease, is critical to guide effective and equitable strategies to respond to the pandemic, including distribution of booster doses, development of new vaccines, and implementation of both pharmaceutical and nonpharmaceutical interventions.

Comparison of two highly-effective mRNA vaccines for COVID-19 during periods of Alpha and Delta variant prevalence

Although clinical trials and real-world studies have affirmed the effectiveness and safety of the FDA-authorized COVID-19 vaccines, reports of breakthrough infections and persistent emergence of new variants highlight the need to vigilantly monitor the effectiveness of these vaccines. Here we compare the effectiveness of two full-length Spike protein-encoding mRNA vaccines from Moderna (mRNA-1273) and Pfizer/BioNTech (BNT162b2) in the Mayo Clinic Health System over time from January to July 2021, during which either the Alpha or Delta variant was highly prevalent. We defined cohorts of vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals from Minnesota (n = 25,589 each) matched on age, sex, race, history of prior SARS-CoV-2 PCR testing, and date of full vaccination. Both vaccines were highly effective during this study period against SARS-CoV-2 infection (mRNA-1273: 86%, 95%CI: 81-90.6%; BNT162b2: 76%, 95%CI: 69-81%) and COVID-19 associated hospitalization (mRNA-1273: 91.6%, 95% CI: 81-97%; BNT162b2: 85%, 95% CI: 73-93%). In July, vaccine effectiveness against hospitalization has remained high (mRNA-1273: 81%, 95% CI: 33-96.3%; BNT162b2: 75%, 95% CI: 24-93.9%), but effectiveness against infection was lower for both vaccines (mRNA-1273: 76%, 95% CI: 58-87%; BNT162b2: 42%, 95% CI: 13-62%), with a more pronounced reduction for BNT162b2. Notably, the Delta variant prevalence in Minnesota increased from 0.7% in May to over 70% in July whereas the Alpha variant prevalence decreased from 85% to 13% over the same time period. Comparing rates of infection between matched individuals fully vaccinated with mRNA-1273 versus BNT162b2 across Mayo Clinic Health System sites in multiple states (Minnesota, Wisconsin, Arizona, Florida, and Iowa), mRNA-1273 conferred a two-fold risk reduction against breakthrough infection compared to BNT162b2 (IRR = 0.50, 95% CI: 0.39-0.64). In Florida, which is currently experiencing its largest COVID-19 surge to date, the risk of infection in July after full vaccination with mRNA-1273 was about 60% lower than after full vaccination with BNT162b2 (IRR: 0.39, 95% CI: 0.24-0.62). Our observational study highlights that while both mRNA COVID-19 vaccines strongly protect against infection and severe disease, further evaluation of mechanisms underlying differences in their effectiveness such as dosing regimens and vaccine composition are warranted.

Real-world effectiveness of Ad26.COV2.S adenoviral vector vaccine for COVID-19

In light of the massive and rapid vaccination campaign against COVID-19, continuous real-world effectiveness and safety assessment of the FDA-authorized vaccines is critical to amplify transparency, build public trust, and ultimately improve overall health outcomes. In this study, we leveraged large-scale longitudinal curation of electronic health records (EHRs) from the multi-state Mayo Clinic health system (MN, AZ, FL, WN, IA). We compared the infection rate of 2,195 individuals who received a single dose of the Ad26.COV2.S vaccine from Johnson & Johnson (J&J) to the infection rate of 21,950 unvaccinated, propensity-matched individuals between February 27th and April 14th 2021. Of the 1,779 vaccinated individuals with at least two weeks of follow-up, only 3 (0.17%) tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 15 days or more after vaccination compared to 128 of 17,744 (0.72%) unvaccinated individuals (4.34 fold reduction rate). This corresponds to a vaccine effectiveness of 76.7% (95% CI: 30.3-95.3%) in preventing SARS-CoV-2 infection with onset at least two weeks after vaccination. This data is consistent with the clinical trial-reported efficacy of Ad26.COV2.S in preventing moderate to severe COVID-19 with onset at least 14 days after vaccine administration (66.9%; 95% CI: 59.0-73.4%). Due to the recent authorization of the Ad26.COV2.S vaccine, there are not yet enough hospitalizations, ICU admissions, or deaths within this cohort to robustly assess the effect of vaccination on COVID-19 severity, but these outcomes will be continually assessed in near-real-time with our platform. Collectively, this study provides further evidence that a single dose of Ad26.COV2.S is highly effective in preventing SARS-CoV-2 infection and reaffirms the urgent need to continue mass vaccination efforts globally.

Cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST) is not significantly linked to COVID-19 vaccines or non-COVID vaccines in a large multi-state US health system

Cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST) has been reported in a small number of individuals who have received the mRNA vaccines1 or the adenoviral vector vaccines for COVID-19 in the US2 and Europe3. Continued pharmacovigilance is integral to mitigating the risk of rare adverse events that clinical trials are underpowered to detect, however, these anecdotal reports have led to the pause or withdrawal of some vaccines in many jurisdictions and exacerbated vaccine hesitancy at a critical moment in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. We investigated the frequencies of CVST seen among individuals who received FDA-authorized COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech (n = 94,818 doses), Moderna (n = 36,350 doses) and Johnson & Johnson - J&J (n = 1,745 doses), and among individuals receiving one of 10 FDA-approved non-COVID-19 vaccines (n = 771,805 doses). Comparing the incidence rates of CVST in 30-day time windows before and after vaccination, we found no statistically significant differences for the COVID-19 vaccines or any other vaccines studied in this population. In total, we observed 3 cases of CVST within the 30 days following Pfizer-BioNTech vaccination (2 females, 1 male; Ages (years): [79, 80, 84]), including one individual with a prior history of thrombosis and another individual with recent trauma in the past 30 days. We did not observe any cases of CVST among the patients receiving Moderna or J&J vaccines in this study population. We further found the baseline CVST incidence in the study population between 2017 and 2021 to be 45 to 98 per million patient years. Overall, this real-world evidence-based study highlights that CVST is rare and is not significantly associated with COVID-19 vaccination. In addition, there is a need for a concerted international effort to monitor EHR data across diverse patient populations and to investigate the underlying biological mechanisms leading to these rare clotting events.

Female-male differences in COVID vaccine adverse events have precedence in seasonal flu shots: a potential link to sex-associated baseline gene expression patterns

Nearly 150 million doses of FDA-authorized COVID vaccines have been administered in the United States. Sex-based differences of adverse events remain poorly understood, mandating the need for real-world investigation from Electronic Health Records (EHRs) and broader epidemiological data sets. Based on an augmented curation of EHR clinical notes of 31,064 COVID-vaccinated individuals (19,321 females and 11,743 males) in the Mayo Clinic, we find that nausea and vomiting were documented significantly more frequently in females than males after both vaccine doses (nausea: RRDose 1 = 1.67, pDose 1 <0.001, RRDose 2 = 2.2, pDose 1 < 0.001; vomiting: RRDose 1 = 1.58, pDose 1 < 0.001, RRDose 2 = 1.88, pDose 1 = 3.4x10-2). Conversely, fever, fatigue, and lymphadenopathy were more common in males after the first dose vaccination (fever RR = 0.62; p = 8.65x10-3; fatigue RR = 0.86, p = 2.89x10-2; lymphadenopathy RR = 0.61, p = 3.45x10-3). Analysis of the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) database further confirms that nausea comprises a larger fraction of total reports among females than males (RR: 1.58; p<0.001), while fever comprises a larger fraction of total reports among males than females (RR: 0.84; p<0.001). Importantly, increased reporting of nausea and fever among females and males, respectively, is also observed for prior influenza vaccines in the VAERS database, establishing that these differences are not unique to the recently developed COVID-19 vaccines. Investigating the mechanistic basis underlying these clinical findings, an analysis of bulk RNA-sequencing data from 12,158 human blood samples (8626 female, 3532 male) reveals 85 genes that are not only significantly different in their gene expression between females and males at baseline, but also have established literature-based associations to COVID-19 as well as the vaccine-related adverse events of clinical consequence. The NLRP3 inflammasome and the NR3C1 glucocorticoid receptor emerge as particularly promising baseline links to sex-associated vaccine adverse events, warranting targeted investigation of these signaling pathways and associated cell types. From a public health standpoint, our clinical findings shall aid in educating patients on the sex-associated risks they should expect for COVID-19 vaccines and also promote better clinical management of vaccine-associated adverse events.

Real-time analysis of a mass vaccination effort via an Artificial Intelligence platform confirms the safety of FDA-authorized COVID-19 vaccines

As the COVID-19 vaccination campaign unfolds as one of the most rapid and widespread in history, it is important to continuously assess the real world safety of the FDA-authorized vaccines. Curation from large-scale electronic health records (EHRs) allows for near real-time safety evaluations that were not previously possible. Here, we advance context- and sentiment-aware deep neural networks over the multi-state Mayo Clinic enterprise (Minnesota, Arizona, Florida, Wisconsin) for automatically curating the adverse effects mentioned by physicians in over 108,000 EHR clinical notes between December 1st 2020 to February 8th 2021. We retrospectively compared the clinical notes of 31,069 individuals who received at least one dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna vaccine to those of 31,069 unvaccinated individuals who were propensity matched by demographics, residential location, and history of prior SARS-CoV-2 testing. We find that vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals were seen in the the clinic at similar rates within 21 days of the first or second actual or assigned vaccination dose (first dose Odds Ratio = 1.13, 95% CI: 1.09-1.16; second dose Odds Ratio = 0.89, 95% CI: 0.84-0.93). Further, the incidence rates of all surveyed adverse effects were similar or lower in vaccinated individuals compared to unvaccinated individuals after either vaccine dose. Finally, the most frequently documented adverse effects within 7 days of each vaccine dose were arthralgia (Dose 1: 0.59%; Dose 2: 0.39%), diarrhea (Dose 1: 0.58%; Dose 2: 0.33%), erythema (Dose 1: 0.51%; Dose 2: 0.31%), myalgia (Dose 1: 0.40%; Dose 2: 0.34%), and fever (Dose 1: 0.27%; Dose 2: 0.31%). These remarkably low frequencies of adverse effects recorded in EHRs versus those derived from active solicitation during clinical trials (arthralgia: 24-46%; erythema: 9.5-14.7%; myalgia: 38-62%; fever: 14.2-15.5%) emphasize the rarity of vaccine-associated adverse effects requiring clinical attention. This rapid and timely analysis of vaccine-related adverse effects from contextually rich EHR notes of 62,138 individuals, which was enabled through a large scale Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered platform, reaffirms the safety and tolerability of the FDA-authorized COVID-19 vaccines in practice.

FDA-authorized COVID-19 vaccines are effective per real-world evidence synthesized across a multi-state health system

Large Phase 3 clinical trials of the two FDA-authorized COVID-19 vaccines, mRNA-1273 (Moderna) and BNT162b2 (Pfizer/BioNTech), have demonstrated efficacies of 94.1% (n = 30,420, 95% CI: 89.3-96.8) and 95% (n = 43,448, 95% CI: 90.3-97.6) in preventing symptomatic COVID-19, respectively. Given the ongoing vaccine rollout to healthcare personnel and residents of long-term care facilities, here we provide a preliminary assessment of real-world vaccination efficacy in 62,138 individuals from the Mayo Clinic and associated health system (Arizona, Florida, Minnesota, Wisconsin) between December 1st 2020 and February 8th 2021. Our retrospective analysis contrasts 31,069 individuals receiving at least one dose of either vaccine with 31,069 unvaccinated individuals who are propensity-matched based on demographics, location (zip code), and number of prior SARS-CoV-2 PCR tests. 8,041 individuals received two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine and were at risk for infection at least 36 days after their first dose. Administration of two COVID-19 vaccine doses was 88.7% effective in preventing SARS-CoV-2 infection (95% CI: 68.4-97.1%) with onset at least 36 days after the first dose. Furthermore, vaccinated patients who were subsequently diagnosed with COVID-19 had significantly lower 14-day hospital admission rates than propensity-matched unvaccinated COVID-19 patients (3.7% vs. 9.2%; Relative Risk: 0.4; p-value: 0.007). Building upon the previous randomized trials of these vaccines, this study demonstrates their real-world effectiveness in reducing the rates of SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 severity among individuals at highest risk for infection.