Kidney Transplant Patients Will Test a COVID-19 Booster Shot in New Trial

The National Institutes of Health is giving a booster dose to 200 kidney transplant patients who did not have an immune response to the COVID-19 vaccine in a new trial that launched yesterday. From a report: Many transplant patients, who have to take immunosuppressant drugs to keep their bodies from rejecting a new organ, don't produce enough antibodies -- or don't produce antibodies at all -- after getting the COVID-19 vaccine. The study will check to see if a third shot of an mRNA vaccine, given on top of the normal two-shot regimen, will generate antibodies closer to the levels seen in healthy people. There are some indications that a third dose might help some people. In France, health officials started recommending in April that immunosuppressed patients get a third shot of the COVID-19 vaccine. Half of the patients who did not respond to two shots produced antibodies after the third, according to an analysis of 159 kidney transplant patients. The other half, though, still had no response. In Germany, one study of 48 transplant patients found that 40 percent who didn't respond to two doses had a response after the third. Two other trials looking at kidney transplant patients are also kicking off in Israel and Switzerland.

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