Immune cells protecting against Covid-19 are able to identify the Omicron variant, according to a new study.
The powerful cells have been found to provide long term immunity against the virus as they tackle infected cells within the body.
T cells, a type of white blood cell, are able to hunt down and destroy an infection.
Researches closely analysed the role of T cells - which can be made in response to vaccines and/or infection - in preventing serious illness due to coronavirus variants.
Importantly, the scientists found that the cells were able to tackle Omicron despite the numbers of mutations within the virus strain, reports Wales Online.
Catherine Riou and Wendy Burgers, along with colleagues from the University of Cape Town, South Africa, examined T cell responses in people who had previously been vaccinated or infected with earlier variants of the virus.
The authors examined the T cell response from 40 people who had received either one or two doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, 15 who had received two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech jab, and 15 unvaccinated people who had had previous infection.
They found that 70% to 80% of T cell responses were maintained against the Omicron spike protein across the study groups.
For 19 patients who were admitted to hospital with Omicron in South Africa – where the variant was first detected – the authors found that these people had T cell responses comparable to those seen in patients who were admitted to hospital in previous waves of the pandemic, when the Beta and Delta variants were dominant.
Writing in the journal Nature, the authors said: “Despite Omicron’s extensive mutations and reduced susceptibility to neutralising antibodies, the majority of T cell responses, induced by vaccination or infection, cross-recognise the variant.
“It remains to be determined whether well-preserved T cell immunity to Omicron contributes to protection from severe Covid-19, and is linked to early clinical observations from South Africa and elsewhere.”
A separate study published in the same journal found that T cell responses induced by vaccination are well conserved against the Omicron variant.
Penny Ward is an independent pharmaceutical physician, and visiting professor in pharmaceutical medicine at King’s College London.
She said: “These data offer at least one explanation for the observed retained protection against severe disease following reinfection in vaccinated patients during the recent Omicron wave, and offer at least some reassurance that these broad responses may also blunt disease severity should, as expected, further variants emerge.”
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