Three separate spike antigen exposures by COVID-19 vaccination or SARS-CoV-2 infection elicit strong humoral immune responses in healthcare workers

ABSTRACT

As part of our ongoing prospective seroprevalence study, we assessed the SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 vaccination-induced immunity of 697 hospital workers at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf between January 17 and 31, 2022. The overall prevalence of anti-NC-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies indicating prior infection was 9.8% (n=68) and thus lower than the seroprevalence in the general population in Hamburg. At the current study visit, 99.3% (n=692) had received at least one vaccine dose and 93.1% (n=649) had received at least three vaccine doses. All vaccinated individuals had detectable anti-S1-RBD-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies (median AU/ml [IQR] 13891 [8505 - 23543]), indicating strong protection against severe COVID-19. In addition, we show that individuals who received three COVID-19 vaccine doses (median AU/ml [IQR] 13856 [8635 - 22705]), and those who resolved a prior SARS-CoV-2 infection and received two COVID-19 vaccine doses (median AU/ml [IQR] 13409 [6934 - 25000]) exhibited the strongest humoral immune responses. The low prevalence of anti-NC-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies indicates persistent effectiveness of established infection control interventions in preventing nosocomial SARS-CoV-2 transmission with the delta and omicron viral variants as predominant strains. Our study further indicates that three exposures to the viral spike protein by either SARS-CoV-2 infection or COVID-19 vaccination are necessary to elicit particularly strong humoral immune responses, which supports current vaccination recommendations.