In tick-borne encephalitis (TBE)-endemic regions, long-term vaccination programs are efficient in preventing the disease. A booster dose of a polygeline-free inactivated TBE vaccine (Encepur Adults, GSK), administered approximately 3 years post-primary vaccination according to 1 of 3 licensed vaccination schedules in adults and adolescents, resulted in antibody persistence for 10 years post-boosting. We used different power-law models (PLMs) to predict long-term persistence of anti-TBE virus neutralization test (NT) antibody titers over a period of 20 years post-booster dose, based on individual antibody NT titers measured for 10 years post-booster vaccination. The PLMs were fitted on pooled data for all vaccine schedules. A mean NT titer of 261 (95% prediction interval: 22-3096), considerably above the accepted threshold of protection (NT titers ≥10), was predicted 20 years post-booster vaccination with TBE vaccine. Our modeled data suggest that the intervals of booster doses could be increased without compromising protection against TBE.

Department for Tropical Travel Medicine and Immunization Institute for Postgraduate Medical Education Prague Prague 10 Czechia

GSK Rixensart Belgium

GSK Siena Italy

GSK Wavre Belgium

Vaccination and Travel Medicine Centre Hradec Králové Czechia

Hum Vaccin Immunother. 2020 Sep 1;16(9):2280-2281. doi: 10.1080/21645515.2020.1783954. PubMed

Hum Vaccin Immunother. 2020 Sep 1;16(9):2282-2284. doi: 10.1080/21645515.2020.1798713. PubMed

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Response letter: "Predicted long-term antibody persistence for a tick-borne encephalitis vaccine: results from a modeling study beyond 10 years after a booster dose following different primary vaccination schedules"