Studies suggest that COVID vaccines may trigger antibody-dependent enhancement in some people, a condition that could cause them to develop more severe symptoms when exposed to the wild virus than if they hadn’t been vaccinated.
Associate Professor of Health Sciences Adam MacNeil at Brock University, Canada and his Ph.D. student Jeremia Coish were among the earliest to warn, last June, of the dangers of not looking very carefully at the possibility that vaccines might trigger antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE) of disease. This could mean that people who are vaccinated might, paradoxically, suffer more severe disease when exposed to the wild virus than if they hadn’t been vaccinated.
In their aptly titled article, “Out of the frying pan and into the fire? Due diligence warranted for ADE in COVID-19,” published in the journal Microbes and Infection in June 2020, MacNeil and Coish argue that ADE is well known to be a risk for coronavirus-mediated infections, as well as dengue.
For those not already familiar with ADE, it is the paradoxical immune response that makes a person who was previously exposed to the disease, or a vaccine targeting it, more — not less — susceptible in the event that they’re subsequently infected.
