A man who claims to have been injected with the Covid-19 vaccine over 200 times since the pandemic has left scientists stunned after studying him.
The Covid-19 pandemic brought the world to a standstill in March 2020 after the virus spread rapidly around the world and caused millions of excess deaths.
So when a vaccine was finally rolled out, many people were queuing up to get their dose as soon as they were eligible, in order to protect themselves and others as well as to get back out into the world and towards normalcy.
One man appears to have taken it to the extreme, however, as the 62-year-old says he was jabbed 217 times - and the effects on his body have left scientists stunned.
The German man's case has been published in the medical journal Lancet Infectious Diseases after scientists heard about his case and asked if they could do tests on him.
Researchers at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg and Universitätsklinikum Erlangen, Munich and Vienna contacted the man, whose name has not been revealed, after hearing about him in local media.
"We contacted him and invited him to undergo various tests in Erlangen. He was very interested in doing so," said Dr. Kilian Schober from the Institute of Microbiology at Germany’s University Hospital of Erlangen, in a written statement.
The 62-year-old claims to have had 217 jabs over a 29-month period, and the team found official evidence proving he had had 134 Covid vaccines of eight different varieties over a nine-month period.
The public prosecutor in Magdeburg, Germany, where the man lives, had initially opened a fraud investigation about the man's claims, but charges were never filed.
The man eagerly provided the researchers with blood and saliva samples that had been previously collected as well as new samples, and even insisted on having more Covid jabs after the team contacted him, providing further samples after those had been injected too.
He has not reported having any side-effects from the vast number of vaccines he has had, and it is not known why he decided to get the jab hundreds of times.
After analyzing the samples, researchers were stunned to find that the vaccines continued to create antigens and provide increased immunity, even after so many doses.
They found that his immune system produced a large amount of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2, dispelling the previous hypothesis that it would eventually create weaker immune responses.
Katharina Kocher, one of the leading authors of the study, said in a statement via the New York Post: "Over all, we did not find any indication for a weaker immune response, rather the contrary."
The scientists also discovered that the man's immune system was fully functioning and showed signs of increased immunity against the coronavirus compared to those who received three rounds of the vaccine.
Even his 217th inoculation, which was the final one included in the study, was found to boost his immunity by creating more antigens, and researchers did not find any evidence to suggest he'd ever contracted the virus itself.
This study is the first into what effect hyper-vaccination would have on the immune system, after believing that too many doses would eventually weaken the immune system and cause the body's antigens to become used to the virus, making the jabs become less effective.
Vaccines traditionally contain a small dose of weakened or inactive parts of a particular organism which sparks an immune response in the body, meaning it can fight off the virus if it ever comes into contact with it.
And while the results seen in this study are promising, experts still do not recommend getting any more doses of any vaccine - Covid-19 included - than is medically advised.
Dr Schober explained: "Current research indicates that a three-dose vaccination, coupled with regular top-up vaccines for vulnerable groups, remains the favored approach. There is no indication that more vaccines are required."
