A man received 217 COVID shots — what does his body teach us? Premium

A study in The Lancet of a man in Germany who received 217 doses of COVID-19 vaccines over 29 months reveals that the vaccines were well-tolerated and boosted the immune response.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a roller-coaster for vaccinology — from a rare show of truly global collaboration between governments, multilateral agencies, the scientific community, and industry to huge public demand for rapid vaccine development against the new virus that had brought the world to its knees to sudden concerns of “too rapid” development when many vaccines could be developed in record time. Some wanted “booster doses”, and others worried about “too many doses”.

So when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced in September 2021 that the third doses of the Pfizer and the Moderna COVID-19 vaccines would soon be available to Americans who were first in line to receive their initial two-shot vaccines, some experts questioned the need for it for most people — except the elderly or immunocompromised — and called it “over-vaccination” owing to a lack of data.

Later, the third dose became the norm worldwide, although India still called it a “precaution dose” and continues to do so, while many Western countries recommend repeated boosters, some with updated vaccines against the current Omicron variant. The debate over the best vaccination strategy continues.

In January 2022, an octogenarian from Madhepura district in Bihar claimed to have received more than 11 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine because it helped him with joint and back pain that had eluded other forms of treatment. At the time, some scientists worried about “over-vaccination”. Since the subsequent doses beyond the first two may not have been reported, it faded from the headlines.

But on March 4, a study published in The Lancet reported a shocking case of “over-vaccination” by a 62-year-old German man who received over 217 COVID-19 shots over 29 months for “private reasons”.

Researchers found out about his case from media reports and conducted a detailed study to investigate the immunological and other effects of over-vaccination on his body. Their investigation revealed much about immune function and the effects of over-vaccination. They compared their findings to a reference cohort of 29 healthy persons who received ‘only’ three COVID-19 vaccine doses.

Between November 2019 and October 2023, the researchers conducted routine examinations for various reasons, which indicated no vaccination-related anomalies on 62 parameters. No vaccine dose caused issues for the German individual. He never got a minor SARS-CoV2 infection either, according to rapid antigen/RT-PCR and nucleocapsid serology assays.