REVIEW article
Front. Immunol.
Sec. Multiple Sclerosis and Neuroimmunology
This article is part of the Research TopicLong- and Post-COVID Syndromes: Immune Mechanisms and Therapeutic StrategiesView all 8 articles
Vaccination and COVID-19: Impact on Long-COVID
Provisionally accepted
Gustavo N Guimarães
Natália Silva Brunetti
Dieila Giomo de Lima
José Luiz Proença-Modena
Alessandro S Farias*- Universidade Estadual de Campinas Instituto de Biologia, Campinas, Brazil
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Long- and post-COVID-19 syndromes have emerged as a significant global health challenge, with millions of individuals experiencing persistent or the development of new symptoms after a long period of an initial SARS-CoV-2 infection. These symptoms are multisystemic and may indicate changes in the respiratory, neurological, cardiovascular and gastrointestinal systems, in addition to prolonged fatigue. Vaccination has played a crucial role in reducing severe disease and mortality, but the impact of the different vaccine combinations on the development and resolution of Long COVID remains a topic of debate. This review synthesizes current evidence on how different vaccine platforms, dosing strategies and booster doses influence the immunological response, protection, incidence, severity, and persistence of Long COVID symptoms. We discuss key immunological mechanisms by which vaccination may modulate and protect post-COVID syndrome outcomes, including its effects on viral clearance, immune response reprogramming, inflammation, and autoimmunity, seeking to combat misinformation and concepts spread by fake news. The review also highlights controversies and research gaps, such as variability in vaccine response among different populations and the role in the selection of more transmissible and virulent SARS-CoV-2 variants, as well as the potential differences between vaccine-induced and infection-induced immunity, and the role of pre-existing immune conditions in this scenario.
Keywords: COVID-19, Long Covid, SARS-CoV-2, Vaccine, immunology
Received: 15 Aug 2025; Accepted: 28 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 N Guimarães, Silva Brunetti, Giomo de Lima, Proença-Modena and S Farias. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Alessandro S Farias, asfarias@unicamp.br
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