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 several more contagious variants that originate in the United Kingdom, South Africa and Brazil. In the US, variants of New York and California have been identified.
So far, studies show that the vaccines currently in use can recognize the emerging variants – but it does not offer as much protection against these new strains. The South African variant has reduced Pfizer-BioNTech’s antibody protection by two-thirds, according to a February study. The neutralizing antibodies of Moderna have decreased sixfold with the South African variant.
(There are several reasons why the antibodies generated after receiving a vaccine can recognize a variant, but also can not fight against it. Antibodies protect you by attaching to each individual ear protein on the surface of the coronavirus, which prevent it from infecting your cell. variant produces many times more virus, the antibodies may not be able to attach to all the virus pieces as precisely or effectively.)
Enhancers and new versions of vaccines targeting the variants are already being investigated.
The three vaccines approved 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 handling variants. This is what we know:
Modern
Moderna is testing the use of a third dose of its existing vaccine, as well as the use of a booster shot aimed at the South African variant. (It sent samples to the National Institutes of Health for clinical trials on February 24.)
Stephane Bancel, CEO of Moderna, said the company “is committed to making as many updates to our vaccine as possible until the pandemic is under control,” in a press release on February 24.
Moderna’s vaccine uses messenger RNA or “mRNA” technology to deliver genetic material to cells with instructions on how to make a non-infectious piece of the coronavirus’ vein protein. The immune system recognizes the copies of the ear protein and creates antibodies against it. When a person who is fully vaccinated 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.
The boosters for new variants use the same technology as the original Covid vaccine from Moderna. Bancel said it was essentially “copying and pasting” the new mutations into the vaccine. Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett, who led the team in charge of the Moderna vaccine, calls this approach ‘plug and play’.
It can take months before the clinical data is ready to be reviewed, and even longer before the boosters are approved, manufactured and ready to be administered.
President of Moderna, Stephen Hoge, told Scientific American that if the variants start to dominate infections in the coming months, the company is willing to ‘find out when we switch and how’. High did not comment on when the booster would be available.
Pfizer-BioNTech
Pfizer-BioNTech is also testing a third booster shot of the vaccine (it is an mRNA vaccine) on people who have been fully vaccinated in the Phase 1 study. Participants receive their third dose six to twelve months after being fully vaccinated, according to a release.
In addition, the company is discussing a ‘clinical trial for a’ variety-specific vaccine ‘, which is a reconstructed version of the original vaccine using the strain from South Africa, according to a report.
“We think our vaccine is highly active against all strains,” Pfizer scientific officer Mikael Dolsten said in an interview on February 25. In the future, there is a reasonable possibility that people should get regular shots, Dolsten said. Or the companies may have to change the tension every few years to adapt, he said.
Like Moderna, Pfizer’s mRNA vaccine is quite adaptable.
“The flexibility of our own mRNA vaccination platform enables us, if necessary, to develop technological vaccines within a few weeks,” said Ugur Sahin, CEO and co-founder of BioNTech, in a release.
“This regulatory pathway has already been established for other infectious diseases such as influenza. We are taking these steps to ensure long-term immunity to the virus and its variants.”
Johnson & Johnson
The latest vaccine approved by the Food and Drug Administration for emergency use has had an efficacy rate of 72% to prevent moderate diseases in the US. But in South Africa, where a highly contagious mutation of the virus is the most important variant, the effectiveness was 64% according to FDA data effective in preventing moderate to severe or critical Covid. In Brazil, the vaccine was 66% effective.
(Experts say it’s worth noting that Johnson & Johnson’s trials took place when the new variant had already become the dominant tribes in South Africa and Brazil, while the trials of Moderna and Pfizer took place before it happened. has.)
Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose vaccine uses an adenovirus, a virus that causes colds, as a messenger to give instructions to the body cells.
Johnson & Johnson CEO Alex Gorsky said the company is well positioned to tailor the vaccine for 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 1. He did not explain how the software would work.
“We are confident, based on the clinical data we already have with our vaccine, that we will see a very strong response, but at the same time we are doing exactly the same thing. [as other companies working on variants]”Gorsky said.
Novavax
Although the two-shot Covid vaccine from Novavax has not yet been approved in the US, the company expects it to be approved by the FDA by May.
Data from the UK trial in January show that the vaccine was more than 89% effective against Covid and 85.6% effective against the British variant. But the Novavax vaccine was less than 50% effective for the South African strain.
Novavax is working on a third booster that could be tested in April, a company spokesman told Scientific American.
Novavax is a two-dose ‘protein subunit vaccine’, which means that it contains harmless pieces of surface vein protein that directly trigger the immune system. Scientists can therefore essentially add different strains to the existing vaccine as variants emerge.
Novavax CEO Stanley Erck told NPR that the Covid vaccines can be adapted ‘very easily’, similar to the way a flu vaccine is adapted each year to suit the prominent strains.
It can even become a “divalent vaccine”, which is a vaccine that is protected against several strains of a virus. ‘We will therefore use the original Wuhan tribe and the South African tribe [to tweak the vaccine] and will probably test it in humans in the second quarter of this year, ‘Erck told NPR.
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