Antibody Response to ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 (AZD1222) Vaccine in Kidney Transplant Recipients

Abstract

Kidney transplant recipients (KTRs) are at a much higher risk of complications and death following COVID-19 and are poor vaccine responders. The data are limited on the immune response to Covishield® in KTRs. We prospectively recruited a cohort of 67 KTRs aged >18 between April 2021 and December 2021. Each participant was given two intramuscular doses of Covishield®, each of 0.5 mL, at an interval of 12 weeks. A blood specimen of 5.0 mL was collected from each participant at two points within a few days before administering the first dose of the vaccine and at any time between 4–12 weeks after administering the second dose. The sera were tested for anti-RBD antibody (ARAb) titre and neutralising antibody (NAb). An ACE2 competition assay was used as a proxy for virus neutralization. According to the prior COVID-19 infection, participants were grouped as (i) group A: prior symptomatic COVID-19 infection, (ii) group B: prior asymptomatic COVID-19 infection as evidenced by detectable ARAb in the prevaccination specimen, (iii) Group C: no prior infection with COVID-19, (iv) group D: Unclassified, i.e., participants had no symptoms suggestive of COVID-19, but their prevaccination specimen was not available for ARAb testing before vaccination. Fifty of sixty-seven participants (74.6%) provided paired specimens (group A 14, group B 27, and group C 9) and 17 participants (25.4%) provided only postvaccination specimens (group D). In the overall cohort (n = 67), 91% and 77.6% of participants developed ARAb and NAb, respectively. Their ARAb titre and NAb proportion were 2927 (520–7124) U/mL and 87.9 (24.4–93.2) %, respectively. Their median ARAb titre increased 65.6 folds, from 38.2 U/mL to 3137 U/mL. Similarly, the proportion of participants with NAb increased from 56% to 86%, and the NAb proportion raised 2.7 folds, from 23% to 91%. A comparison of vaccine response between the study groups showed that all those with or without prior COVID-19 infection showed a significant rise in ARAb titre (p < 0.05) and NAb proportion (p < 0.05) after the two doses of vaccine administration. The median value of folds rise in anti-RBD and NAb between groups A and B were comparable. Hence, ARAb is present in more than 3/4th of KTRs before the ChAdOx1 vaccine in India. The titer of ARAb and the proportion of NAb significantly increased after the two doses of the ChAdOx1 vaccine in KTRs.