Link to Pubmed [PMID] – 39325828
Link to DOI – 10.1371/journal.pmed.1004397
PLoS Med 2024 Sep; 21(9): e1004397
Pacific Islanders are underrepresented in vaccine efficacy trials. Few studies describe their immune response to COVID-19 vaccination. Yet, this characterization is crucial to re-enforce vaccination strategies adapted to Pacific Islanders singularities.We evaluated the humoral immune response of 585 adults, self-declaring as Melanesians, Europeans, Polynesians, or belonging to other communities, to the Pfizer BNT162b2 vaccine. Anti-spike and anti-nucleoprotein IgG levels, and their capacity to neutralize SARS-CoV-2 variants and to mediate antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC) were assessed across communities at 1 and 3 months post-second dose or 1 and 6 months post-third dose. All sera tested contained anti-spike antibodies and 61.3% contained anti-nucleoprotein antibodies, evidencing mostly a hybrid immunity resulting from vaccination and SARS-CoV-2 infection. At 1-month postimmunization, the 4 ethnic communities exhibited no significant differences in their anti-spike IgG levels (p value = 0.17, in an univariate linear regression model), in their capacity to mediate omicron neutralization (p value = 0.59 and 0.60, in an univariate logistic regression model at 1-month after the second and third dose, respectively) and in their capacity to mediate ADCC (p value = 0.069 in a multivariate linear regression model), regardless of the infection status. Anti-spike IgG levels and functionalities of the hybrid humoral immune response remained equivalent across the 4 ethnic communities during follow-up and at 6 months post-third dose.Our study evidenced Pacific Islander’s robust humoral immune response to Pfizer BNT162b2 vaccine, which is pivotal to re-enforce vaccination deployment in a population at risk for severe COVID-19 (clinicaltrials.gov: NCT05135585).This trial has been register in ClinicalTrials.gov (ID: NCT05135585).