breakthrough infection
Post-immunization illness
A breakthrough infection is an infection that occurs despite vaccination or other preventive measures.
The term gained wide use during the COVID-19 pandemic to describe cases in vaccinated individuals: She had a mild breakthrough infection but recovered quickly.
Breakthrough infections are generally expected with any vaccine and don't necessarily indicate vaccine failure—they're often less severe than infections in unvaccinated people.
- vaccineDisease prevention injection
- second doseSubsequent administration of medicine
- immunityProtected from harm
- immune responseBody fighting foreign threats
- variantDiffering form of something
COVID · booster · antibodies · reinfection · viral · viral load · symptomatic · mild · Delta · Omicron · waning · protection · exposure · transmission · close contact · quarantine · testing · positive
- pandemiclockdowns, COVID-19, outbreak, epidemic, COVID
- COVID-19COVID-19, spike protein, mRNA vaccines, omicron, variants
- vaccinationvaccine, vaccines, immunization, shot, shots
- contagioncontagion, outbreak, epidemic, pandemic, spreading
- diagnostic testsantigen test, blood test, PCR test, swab test, rapid test
breakthrough infectionvaccine efficacy
How well inoculations prevent illness
breakthrough, infection, through, breakthroughs, infections, breaking, breaks, infect, infects