Clinical outcome and humoral immune responses of β-thalassemia major patients with severe iron overload to SARS-CoV-2 infection and vaccination: a prospective cohort study

Efficacy and safety of BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine in a cohort of 90 transfusion dependent thalassemia patients

“…10 Our data about the incidence and severity of SARS-CoV-2 infection agree with those reported by Ghoti et al who found a high incidence of infection associated with a mild form of disease in the TDT patient population. 4 Among our TDT infected-vaccinated patients we found a greater incidence of splenectomized patients compared to infected unvaccinated patients without significant difference in COVID-19 severity between splenectomized vs non-splenectomized TDT patients; these findings agree with those reported in the Ghoti study. 4 It has been shown that splenectomized TDT patients have higher anti SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibody titres after infection 4 and vaccination 5 as compared to non-splenectomized TDT patients; it is possible to speculate that sustained humoral response represents a protective mechanism against SARS-CoV-2 severity [see Garcia-Beltran et al, COVID-19-neutralising antibodies predict disease severity and survival (2021) Cell; 184:476-488].…”