New findings from the CITF-funded SUCCEED project, published in The Lancet Rheumatology, indicate that two doses of mRNA vaccines were 79 to 89% effective at preventing SARS-CoV-2 infection in individuals living with immune-mediated inflammatory diseases in Ontario.
In a pre-print, not yet peer reviewed, Drs. Zabrina Brumme and Mark Brockman from Simon Fraser University and the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, and members of the Canadian HIV Trials Network, led by Dr. Aslam Anis from the University of British Columbia, demonstrated that responses to COVID-19 vaccines in people living with HIV (PLWH) are similar to those in controls without HIV.
A CITF-funded study - led by Drs. Matthew Oliver from the University of Toronto and Peter Blake from Western University – looked at the effectiveness of mRNA vaccines among 13,759 individuals receiving maintenance dialysis.
In this short correspondence published in The Lancet Gastroenterology and Hepatology, CITF-funded researchers Dr. Jessica Widdifield of the University of Toronto, Dr. Sasha Bernatsky of McGill University, and colleagues presented the frequency of SARS-CoV-2 vaccination in Ontario patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
In a research study originally released as a preprint, and now published in npj vaccines, Drs. Zabrina Brumme and Mark Brockman, from the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS and Simon Fraser University, evaluated antibody responses to COVID-19 vaccines in people living with HIV who were receiving suppressive antiretroviral therapy.
In a letter published in RMD Open, CITF-funded researchers found that SARS-CoV-2 antibody levels and T cell responses increased following a third dose of vaccine in immunocompromised patients. Drs. Vinod Chandran, Anne-Claude Gingras, and Tania Watts (University of Toronto) showed that 92% of COVID-naïve patients with immune-mediated inflammatory disease (IMID) showed anti-spike and anti-RBD antibody levels that were greater than convalescent individuals (those recovering from COVID-19 infection).
CITF-funded researchers Drs. Michelle Hladunewich and Matthew Oliver from Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre compared antibody responses after two-dose COVID-19 immunization with mRNA vaccines in individuals undergoing hemodialysis.
This CITF-funded study, led by Dr. Sasha Bernatsky from the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre and published in the Journal of Rheumatology, found that the proportion of people with autoimmune diseases who had received two vaccine doses was higher (83.8-88.2%) than in the general population (77.9%).
CITF-funded HIV-COV, led by Dr. Aslam Anis from the University of British Columbia, has published the protocols for its pan-Canadian study of people living with HIV who have received, or plan to receive, a COVID-19 vaccine in BMJ Open.
An article published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases by CITF-funded researcher Dr. Deepali Kumar at the University of Toronto evaluated T cell responses in 50 solid organ transplant recipients (SOTR) who demonstrated prior COVID-19 infection.