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 emerging around the globe, in the United Kingdom, South Africa and Brazil. In the USA, variants of New York City and California have been identified.
So far, studies suggest that vaccines currently in use can recognize emerging variants – but they do not provide as much protection against these new strains. The South Africa variant, for example, reduced Pfizer-BioNTech’s antibody protection by two-thirds, according to a February study. The neutralizing antibodies of Moderna fell six times with the South Africa variant.
(There are several reasons why antibodies generated after receiving a vaccine may recognize a variant, but not fight it, too. Antibodies protect you by attaching to each individual protein peak on the surface of the coronavirus, which prevents you from infecting your variant cell often produces more viruses, antibodies may not be able to attach to all of these virus fragments as accurately or efficiently.)
But enhancements and new versions of vaccines that target 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 for handling variants. Here’s what we know:
Modern
Moderna is testing using a third dose of its existing vaccine, as well as using a booster injection that targets the South African variant. (He sent samples to the National Institutes of Health for clinical trials on February 24)
Moderna’s 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 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 portion of the coronavirus spine protein. The immune system recognizes copies of the spike protein and creates antibodies against it. If a fully vaccinated person is exposed to the real virus in the future, the body can remember how to trigger an immune response and create antibodies that fight the virus.
Reinforcements for new variants use the same technology as the original Covid vaccine from Moderna. Bancel said it is essentially a matter of “copy and paste” the new mutations in the vaccine. Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett, who led the team responsible for Moderna’s vaccine, calls this approach “plug and play”.
It can take months for clinical data to be ready for review and even more for reinforcements to be approved, produced and ready to be administered.
Moderna’s president Stephen Hoge told Scientific American that if variants start to dominate infections in the coming months, the company is prepared to “find out when we will make the switch and how.” Hoge did not comment when the backup would be available.
Pfizer-BioNTech
Pfizer-BioNTech is also testing a third booster injection of its vaccine (which is an mRNA vaccine) in people who were fully vaccinated in the Phase 1 study. Participants will receive their third dose six to 12 months after they have been fully vaccinated. vaccinated, according to a statement.
In addition, the company is discussing a clinical trial for “a variant-specific vaccine”, which is a reconstructed version of its original vaccine using the South African strain, according to a statement.
“We think our vaccine is strongly active against all strains,” said Pfizer’s scientific director, Mikael Dolsten, in an interview on February 25. In the future, it is “a reasonable possibility” that people will need to receive regular booster shots, said Dolsten. Or, companies may need to change strains every few years to adapt, he said.
Like Moderna, Pfizer’s mRNA vaccine is quite adaptable.
“The flexibility of our proprietary mRNA vaccine platform allows us to technically develop booster vaccines within weeks, if necessary,” said Ugur Sahin, CEO and co-founder of BioNTech, in a statement.
“This regulatory pathway is already established for other infectious diseases like the flu. We have taken these measures to ensure long-term immunity against the virus and its variants.”
Johnson & Johnson
The most recent vaccine to obtain emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration had a 72% effectiveness rate for preventing moderate illness in the United States. But in South Africa, where a highly contagious virus mutation is the primary variant, the efficacy 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 important to note that the Johnson & Johnson tests took place when the new variants had already become the dominant strains in South Africa and Brazil, while the Moderna and Pfizer tests took place before that.)
The Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccine uses an adenovirus, a virus that causes the common cold, as a messenger to deliver instructions to cells in the body.
Johnson & Johnson CEO Alex Gorsky said the company is well positioned to adapt the vaccine for variants and is working on software development that “will help to deal with some of these new and emerging variants”, during an interview with “Squawk Box “from CNBC March 1. He did not explain how the software would work.
“We are very confident based on the clinical data that we already have with our vaccine that we will see a very robust response, but we are doing exactly the same thing simultaneously [as other companies working on variants]”Said Gorsky.
Novavax
Although Novavax’s Covid dual vaccine has not yet been approved in the United States, the company expects to obtain FDA approval by 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 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 bits of the peak surface protein that directly activate the immune system. So essentially, scientists can add different strains to the existing vaccine as variants appear.
Novavax CEO Stanley Erck told NPR that Covid vaccines can be adjusted “very easily”, similar to how a flu vaccine is adjusted each year to suit prominent strains.
It may 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 testing it on humans probably in the second quarter of this year, “Erck told NPR.
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