Between April and the end of September 2020, the number of healthcare professionals with antibodies against the coronavirus remained relatively stable, around 8 to 9%. This number changed for the first time to reach 24.1% at the end of January, then experienced a significant increase until the end of February and amounts to 63.7%. The first increase reflects the situation during the 2nd wave, while the increase in February is mainly due to the vaccination of health personnel in hospitals.
Since October 2020, the sample concerns 423 health professionals in 12 Belgian hospitals. The 113 health professionals who presented antibodies against the coronavirus for the first time at the end of February and who completed the corresponding questionnaire, all indicated that they had been vaccinated. 64% of them have already received two doses of the vaccine, 36% of them a first dose.
80 % of health professionals participants, who also communicated their immunization status, had already received at least 1 dose of vaccine at the time of sample collection at the end of February.
Of the 229 partially or fully vaccinated participants whose test results were available at the end of February, 58 healthcare professionals already had antibodies before vaccination and 113 participants had them for the first time. 58 partially or fully vaccinated participants did not yet have antibodies against the coronavirus. This can be explained by the fact that 57 of these 58 health professionals had received only one dose of vaccine on average 6 days before the blood test, or by too short a period for the development of antibodies.
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