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Cited by 336

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 128 of the 128 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

SARS-CoV-2 breakthrough infections in vaccinated individuals: measurement, causes and impact

Open access
Lipsitch, Marc, Krammer, Florian, Regev-Yochay, Gili, Lustig, Yaniv, Balicer, Ran D.·2022·Nature Reviews Immunology

Abstract

Breakthrough infections with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in fully vaccinated individuals are receiving intense scrutiny because of their importance in determining how long restrictions to control virus transmission will need to remain in place in highly vaccinated populations as well as in determining the need for additional vaccine doses or changes to the vaccine formulations and/or dosing intervals. Measurement of breakthrough infections is challenging outside of randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind field trials. However, laboratory and observational studies are necessary to understand the impact of waning immunity, viral variants and other determinants of changing vaccine effectiveness against various levels of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) severity. Here, we describe the approaches being used to measure vaccine effectiveness and provide a synthesis of the burgeoning literature on the determinants of vaccine effectiveness and breakthrough rates. We argue that, rather than trying to tease apart the contributions of factors such as age, viral variants and time since vaccination, the rates of breakthrough infection are best seen as a consequence of the level of immunity at any moment in an individual, the variant to which that individual is exposed and the severity of disease being considered. We also address key open questions concerning the transition to endemicity, the potential need for altered vaccine formulations to track viral variants, the need to identify immune correlates of protection, and the public health challenges of using various tools to counter breakthrough infections, including boosters in an era of global vaccine shortages. Here, Lipsitch and colleagues assess the impact of breakthrough SARS-CoV-2 infections that occur in individuals who have been vaccinated against COVID-19. The authors explain how the rate of breakthrough infections can be measured, what the causes of these infections are and discuss other key questions that need to be considered in light of these infections.

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Metadata

Authors
Lipsitch, M., Krammer, F., Regev-Yochay, G., Lustig, Y., & Balicer, R. D.
Venue
Nature Reviews Immunology
Published
2021-12-07
Volume
22
Issue
1
Pages
57-65
ISSN
  • 1474-1733 (ISSN-L)
  • 1474-1741
OpenAlex
W4200368137
Cited by
336
References
128
FWCI
9.81
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
bronze

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: SARS-CoV-2 breakthrough infections in vaccinated individuals: measurement, causes and impact. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1038/s41577-021-00662-4
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Lipsitch, M., Krammer, F., Regev-Yochay, G., Lustig, Y., & Balicer, R. D. (2022). SARS-CoV-2 breakthrough infections in vaccinated individuals: measurement, causes and impact. Nature Reviews Immunology. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41577-021-00662-4

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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.