Background: Understanding the effectiveness of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines over time is critical for informing booster strategies, vaccine types, and public health policies, particularly with continued emergence of novel SARS-CoV-2 variants.
Methods: The Winter Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Study (WCIS), conducted from November 2023 to March 2024, involved approximately 150,000 participants aged 3 years and older from England and Scotland. The WCIS tested participants at regular intervals for SARS-CoV-2 using lateral flow tests to estimate prevalence and incidence in near real-time. Survival analysis using Cox proportional hazards regression was conducted, using WCIS data linked to participant vaccination records, to evaluate the association between time since vaccination and the risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection and symptomatic infection. Vaccine effectiveness (VE) was evaluated for the Comirnaty Omicron XBB.1.5 and Comirnaty Omicron BA.5 vaccines for those aged 65 years old and over. The model incorporated time-varying covariates within the counting process framework, stratified baseline hazards by age group, region, and time, and included key covariates such as sex, clinical risk status, ethnicity, and socioeconomic indicators. VE was estimated from hazard ratios, and penalised cubic splines were used to capture the nonlinear effects of time since vaccination.
Results: We estimated that the VE for the Comirnaty Omicron XBB.1.5 vaccine peaked at day 14 post-vaccination, reaching 70.63% (95% Confidence Intervals (CI): 43.33%, 84.78%) against infection and 63.62% (95% CI: 22.69%, 82.88%) against symptomatic infection. VE declined rapidly and by approximately weeks 9-12 post vaccination, the VE point estimates were close to zero with considerable uncertainty in the estimates from day 60 onwards. In contrast, the Comirnaty Omicron BA.5 bivalent vaccine showed no evidence of effectiveness within the study period, with VE estimates close to zero and wide confidence intervals crossing zero.
Conclusions: These findings provide important insights into the effectiveness of targeted vaccine strategies in the context of an evolving pandemic. As SARS-CoV-2 continues to mutate, adaptive approaches in vaccine design and public health policy will be key to addressing emerging variants and protecting high-risk groups.
Background: Staphylococcus aureus is capable of asymptomatic colonisation, which can progress to opportunistic and potentially life-threatening infection. The data on S. aureus colonisation in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) are limited. This systematic review and meta-analysis estimates the prevalence of S. aureus colonisation in asymptomatic individuals in LMIC, with secondary objectives of assessing antimicrobial resistance, colonisation risk factors, and the molecular epidemiology of colonising strains.
Methods: Articles published up to July 2023 were identified by searching four electronic databases. Studies that presented S. aureus colonisation prevalence in healthy individuals from a community setting in LMIC were included. Data extraction was performed independently by two reviewers with disagreement resolved through consensus. Studies were critically appraised using the Joanna Briggs Institute Prevalence tool. Random effects meta-analysis was conducted where appropriate. This study was registered in advance with PROSPERO (CRD42019147780).
Findings: A total of 16 610 citations were identified of which 138 studies (59 732 participants) met the eligibility criteria. The majority of studies had a low risk of bias. The pooled prevalence of S. aureus colonisation at nose and/or throat sites was 26·4% (95% CI 23·8 - 29·1%). The prevalence of methicillin-resistance in colonising S. aureus strains was 15·0% (95% CI: 11·8 to 18·6%), with a higher prevalence observed in Africa compared to Asia and South America (22·5% vs. 13·1% vs. 5·4% respectively). Panton-Valentine leukocidin genes were present in 26·4% (95% CI: 17·1% to 32·8%) of 2531 isolates.
Interpretation: While the prevalence of asymptomatic S. aureus colonisation in LMIC mirrors that found in high-income countries, there was a higher prevalence of antimicrobial resistance and other virulence factors. Variability in study methods and sparsity of data from many LMIC, underscore the need for a global approach to S. aureus surveillance. This will be critical for informing effective infection prevention strategies.