Hybrid Immunity

In News

• A recent study in the journal the Lancet Infectious Diseases held that “hybrid immunity” provides better protection against severe Covid-19.

What is Immunity?

• Immunity refers to the body’s ability to prevent the invasion of pathogens. Pathogens are foreign disease-causing substances, such as bacteria and viruses.

Types of Immunity

There are broadly two types of immunity: active and passive.

• Active Immunity: It develops from the exposure to a disease thereby triggers the immune system to produce antibodies to that disease. 
  • Active immunity can be acquired through natural immunity or vaccine-induced immunity.
  • Infection-induced immunity is defined as the immune protection in an unvaccinated individual after one or more infections.
  • Vaccine-induced immunity is acquired through the introduction of a killed or weakened form of the disease organism through vaccination. For Example COVID-19 vaccine.

• Passive immunity: It is provided when a person is given antibodies to a disease rather than producing them through his or her own immune system. For example, A newborn baby acquired passive immunity from its mother through the placenta.

Hybrid Immunity

• Hybrid immunity is defined as the immune protection in individuals who have had one or more doses of a COVID-19 vaccine and experienced at least one SARS-CoV-2 infection before or after the initiation of vaccination

Source: IE