The World Health Organisation has warned repeatedly against boosters while the European Medicines Agency cautioned last week that there was no evidence to back a fourth shot.
Looks like a fourth Covid-19 booster vaccine might not be useful after all, according to preliminary research from Israel.‘Despite a significant increase in antibodies after the fourth vaccine, this protection is only partially effective against the Omicron strain, which is relatively resistant to the vaccine,’ explained lead researcher Gili Regev-Yochay.
Last week, Regev-Yochay told Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett that there had been a five-fold increase in antibodies in people who took the fourth dose, but she later told a radio station that ‘the amount of antibodies returns to the level it was after the third vaccine, not more. It’s nice, but it’s not what we expect from a booster,’
Boosters ‘can be done once, or maybe twice, but it’s not something that we can think should be repeated constantly,’ said Marco Cavaleri, the EMA head of biological health threats and vaccine strategy, at a press briefing last week.