LAUSR

eClinicalMedicine 2022;45: 101327 Published online xxx https://doi.org/10.1016/j. eclinm.2022.101327 HIV patients are at increased risk of COVID-19 morbidity and mortality. Moreover, increased SARS-CoV-2 mutation development has been reported in (African) HIV-1 infected patients. Previous reports documented the safety and immunogenicity of mRNA-based SARSCoV-2 vaccines in people infected with HIV. This is less documented for inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccines. In their article published in eClinicalMedicine, Feng and colleagues provide preliminary evidence on the safety and immunogenicity of an inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccine in HIV patients, one of the first to report on this topic in this patient group who are at increased risk of severe COVID-19. The paper describes an open-label two-arm non-randomized study, in which the investigators provided two doses of inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccine (BIBP-CorV), 4 μg each at an average of 4 weeks apart. Forty-two HIV-1 infected individuals who were stable on potent combination antiretroviral treatment (ART), with CD4 cell counts >200, and the majority (63%) being virologically suppressed were included in the study. In addition, 28 healthy individuals were included as controls. Safety and immunogenicity was investigated by measuring anti-spike IgG levels, surrogate virus neutralization assay, spike protein-specific IFN-Ɣ ELISpot, and T-cell activation responses. Baseline data was compared with data obtained at 4 weeks after the first BIBP-CorV vaccine dose, and 4 weeks after the second dose. As with mRNA vaccines, Feng and colleagues demonstrated that HIV-1 infected patients who were on stable ART, exhibited similar safety profiles as well as humoral and cellular immune responses as HIV-1 uninfected, after vaccination with an inactivated SARS-CoV2 vaccine (BIBP-CorV). The investigators did not observe solicited adverse reactions among any of the study participants. There were no differences in binding, and neutralizing antibody levels, as well as spike