Kidney transplant recipients are still at high risk of severe disease due to the coronavirus even after being fully vaccinated, disease experts have warned.
“What we're telling patients right now is, unfortunately, they're going to have to take extra precautions of continuing to do all the things that we had to do early on, which is to wear masks, social distance, wash hands, because there's very little protection [against COVID-19],” said Mike Spigler, vice president of patient services at the American Kidney Fund.
Transplant recipients are required to take
immunosuppressant medications to fend off an attack from their own
immune system on the transplanted organ, resulting in an overall
weakened ability to fight off infection from COVID-19 and other viruses.
Surgeons at Johns Hopkins University reported
earlier this month that nearly all of the 658 organ transplant
recipients they surveyed who received both doses of the coronavirus
vaccines mounted little or no antibody response, meaning that they were
still at high risk of severe infection. ==>> READ MORE