vaccine, called CoVac-1, induced T-cell immune responses in 93% of patients with B-cell deficiencies, as per news agency PTI report.
Juliane Walz, senior author of the study, and a professor at the University Hospital Tubingen in Germany said, "to our knowledge, CoVac-1 is currently the only peptide-based vaccine candidate specifically developed and evaluated for immunocompromised patients." It is important to note that a peptide vaccine is the one where the protein pieces are injected directly, rather than being encoded via messenger RNA (mRNA).
Additionally, the researchers noted that while vaccination induces a robust immune response against the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the majority of individuals, approved vaccines have shown decreased efficacy in many immunocompromised people.
Patients undergoing treatment for blood cancers represent one such population, as their treatment regimens often damage healthy immune cells, particularly B cells, in addition to malignant ones, they said. "In the clinic, we see many cancer patients who do not mount sufficient humoral immune responses after vaccination with available SARS-CoV-2 vaccines.