New, more contagious variants of the coronavirus are being investigated in the United States, raising questions about whether the Covid vaccines currently in use will provide protection against mutations.
There are multiple more contagious variants appearing around the world, in the UK, South Africa and Brazil. In the US, variants of New York City and California have been identified.
To date, studies suggest that the vaccines currently in use may recognize emerging variants, but do not offer as much protection against these new strains. The South African variant, for example, reduced the protection of Pfizer-BioNTech antibodies by two-thirds, according to a February study. Moderna’s neutralizing antibodies fell six times with the South African variant.
(There are several reasons why antibodies generated after receiving a vaccine may recognize a variant but not fight it as well. Antibodies protect you by attaching each individual ear protein to the surface of the coronavirus, which prevents it from infecting the coronavirus. If the variant produces many times more viruses, the antibodies may not be able to bind to all these parts of the virus as accurately or efficiently.)
But enhancers and new versions of vaccines targeting variants are already being explored.
The three vaccines that have been authorized by the Food and Drug Administration for emergency use by Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech and Johnson & Johnson work in different ways and therefore have different approaches to manipulating variants. . Here’s what we know:
Modern
Modern is testing with a third dose of the existing vaccine, as well as a booster shot aimed at the South African variant. (He sent samples to the National Institutes of Health for clinical trials on Feb. 24).
Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel said the company “is committed to making as many updates to our vaccine as necessary until the pandemic is under control,” in a Feb. 24 press release.
Moderna’s vaccine uses messenger RNA technology or “mRNA” to supply genetic material to cells with instructions on how to make a non-infectious piece of the coronavirus ear protein. The immune system recognizes copies of the spike protein and creates antibodies against it. If a fully vaccinated person is exposed to the actual virus in the future, the body can remember how to elicit an immune response and create antibodies that fight the virus.
Promoters of new variants use the same technology as Moderna’s original Covid vaccine. Bancel has said it’s basically about “copying and pasting” new mutations into the vaccine. Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett, who led the team responsible for Moderna’s vaccine, calls this approach “connected.”
It could take months for clinical data to be ready for review and even more time for approval, production, and preparation for administration.
Moderna chairman Stephen Hoge told Scientific American that if variants begin to dominate infections in the coming months, the company is ready to “find out when we change and how.” Hoge did not comment when reinforcement would be available.
Pfizer-BioNTech
Pfizer-BioNTech is also testing a third booster shot of its vaccine (which is an mRNA vaccine) in people who were completely vaccinated in the phase 1 study. According to a statement, participants will receive their third dose between six and twelve months after complete vaccination.
In addition, the company is discussing a clinical trial for “a variant-specific vaccine” that is a reconstructed version of its original vaccine using the South African strain, according to a statement.
“We believe our vaccine is firmly active against all strains,” Pfizer scientific director Mikael Dolsten said in an interview on Feb. 25. In the future, it’s “a reasonable chance” that people will need to receive regular booster shots, Dolsten said. Or companies may have to change strains every few years to adapt, he said.
Like Moderna, the Pfizer mRNA vaccine is quite adaptable.
“The flexibility of our proprietary mRNA vaccine platform allows us to technically develop booster vaccines in a few weeks, if necessary,” said Ugur Sahin, CEO and co-founder of BioNTech, in a statement.
“This regulatory pathway is already in place for other infectious diseases such as the flu. We are taking these steps to ensure long-term immunity against the virus and its variants.”
Johnson & Johnson
The newest vaccine that obtained emergency food use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration had a 72% efficacy rate to prevent moderate disease in the U.S. But in South Africa, where a highly contagious mutation of the virus is the main variant, the effectiveness was 64% effective in preventing moderate to severe or critical Covid, according to FDA data. In Brazil, the vaccine was 66% effective.
(Experts say it is worth noting that the Johnson & Johnson trials took place when the new variants had already become the dominant strains in South Africa and Brazil, while the Moderna and Pfizer trials had place before this happens.)
Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose vaccine uses an adenovirus, a virus that causes the common cold as a messenger to deliver instructions to the body’s cells.
Johnson & Johnson CEO Alex Gorsky said the company is well positioned to adapt the vaccine to variants and is working on software development that will “help address some of these new and emerging variants” during an interview. with CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” March 1st. He did not explain how the software would work.
“We are pretty sure of the clinical data we already have with our vaccine that we will see a very solid response, but at the same time we do exactly the same [as other companies working on variants]”Gorsky said.
Novavax
Although Novavax’s two-shot Covid vaccine is not yet approved in the United States, the company expects it to get FDA approval in May.
Data from the UK trial in January show that the vaccine was more than 89% effective in protecting against Covid and 85.6% effective against the UK variant. But the Novavax vaccine was less than 50% effective in the South African strain.
Novavax is working on a third reinforcement that could be tested in April, a company spokesman told Scientific American.
Novavax is a two-dose “protein subunit vaccine” that is, it contains harmless pieces of the superficial ear protein that directly activate the immune system. Thus, essentially, scientists can add different strains to the existing vaccine as variants appear.
Novavax CEO Stanley Erck told NPR that Covid vaccines can be modified “very easily,” similar to how an influenza vaccine is modified each year to suit prominent strains.
It could even end up being a “bivalent vaccine,” which is a vaccine that protects against various strains of a virus. “So we will use the original Wuhan strain and the South African strain [to tweak the vaccine] and test it on humans probably in the second quarter of this year, ”Erck told NPR.
To check your eligibility status, you can use the NBC News vaccination plan.
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