Breakthrough Infections with Multiple Lineages of SARS-CoV-2 Variants Reveals Continued Risk of Severe Disease in Immunosuppressed Patients

• Published in: Viruses 2021-09, Vol.13 (9), p.1743
• Main Authors: Deng, Xufang, Evdokimova, Monika, O'Brien, Amornrat, Rowe, Cynthia L, Clark, Nina M, Harrington, Amanda, Reid, Gail E, Uprichard, Susan L, Baker, Susan C
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Aged; Amino acids; Antibodies; breakthrough infections; Coronaviruses; COVID-19; COVID-19 - diagnosis; COVID-19 - epidemiology; COVID-19 - immunology; COVID-19 - virology; COVID-19 vaccines; Female; Genome, Viral; Genomes; Genomics - methods; Hospitalization; Humans; Immunocompromised Host; immunosuppression; Infections; Male; Middle Aged; Mutation; Pandemics; Patients; post-vaccination infections; SARS-CoV-2; SARS-CoV-2 - immunology; Sequence analysis; Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; Severity of Illness Index; Software; Statistical analysis; Vaccines; Vaccines - immunology; variants of concern; Viral Load
• ISSN: 1999-4915; 1999-4915
• DOI: 10.3390/v13091743

The pandemic of COVID-19 caused by SARS-CoV-2 infection continues to spread around the world. Vaccines that elicit protective immunity have reduced infection and mortality, however new viral variants are arising that may evade vaccine-induced immunity or cause disease in individuals who are unable to develop robust vaccine-induced responses. Investigating the role of viral variants in causing severe disease, evading vaccine-elicited immunity, and infecting vulnerable individuals is important for developing strategies to control the pandemic. Here, we report fourteen breakthrough infections of SARS-CoV-2 in vaccinated individuals with symptoms ranging from asymptomatic/mild (6/14) to severe disease (8/14). High viral loads with a median C value of 19.6 were detected in the nasopharyngeal specimens from subjects regardless of disease severity. Sequence analysis revealed four distinct virus lineages, including and variants of concern. Immunosuppressed individuals were more likely to be hospitalized after infection ( = 0.047), however no specific variant was associated with severe disease. Our results highlight the high viral load that can occur in asymptomatic breakthrough infections and the vulnerability of immunosuppressed individuals to post-vaccination infections by diverse variants of SARS-CoV-2.