Researchers from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (FAU) said the 62-year-old man from the central German city of Magdeburg chose to receive the large number of vaccines for “private reasons”.

A 62-year-old German man who reportedly received 217 Covid jabs within the space of 29 months showed “no signs” of ever being infected with the virus that causes Covid-19 and had not reported any vaccine-related side effects, according to a study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal.

Researchers from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (FAU) said the man from the central German city of Magdeburg chose to receive the large number of vaccines for “private reasons”.

The research team heard about the man from a newspaper report and asked if they could study his body’s response to the multiple jabs.

“We learned about his case via newspaper articles,” Dr Kilian Schober, from the university’s microbiology department, said.

“We then contacted him and invited him to undergo various tests in Erlangen. He was very interested in doing so.”

The man provided fresh blood and saliva samples.

The researchers had seen official confirmation for 134 of the vaccinations, which included eight different vaccines. They looked at previous blood tests the man had given and also tested some frozen blood samples of his that had been stored in recent years.

“We were able to take blood samples ourselves when the man received a further vaccination during the study at his own insistence. We were able to use these samples to determine exactly how the immune system reacts to the vaccination,” Schober said.

The study reports that the man showed no “abnormalities” or vaccine-related side effects. He also showed no sign that he had ever been infected with COVID.

“The observation that no noticeable side-effects were triggered in spite of this extraordinary hypervaccination indicates that the drugs have a good degree of tolerability,” Schober said.

The published study noted: “While we found no signs of [COVID] breakthrough infections in [him] to date, it cannot be clarified whether this is casually related to the hypervaccination regimen.”

The researchers also found that the man’s immunity to the virus did not wane or become “fatigued” with every subsequent shot.

Certain immune cells and antibodies against the virus which causes Covid-19 (Sars-CoV-2) were present in considerably higher levels compared with people who had received just three vaccines, the researchers reported.

“Overall, we did not find any indication for a weaker immune response, rather the contrary,” said one of the leading study authors Katharina Kocher.

In the published study, the researchers cautioned against generalising the findings from this singular case to the wider population.

“Importantly, we do not endorse hypervaccination as a strategy to enhance adaptive immunity,” they said.

“Current research indicates that a three-dose vaccination, coupled with regular top-up vaccines for vulnerable groups, remains the favoured approach. There is no indication that more vaccines are required,” the university’s website clarified.