How would COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers adapt to variants?
Adjusting your vaccines, a process that should be easier than creating the original vaccines.
Viruses mutate constantly as they spread, and most changes are not significant. First-generation COVID-19 vaccines appear to be working against current variants, but manufacturers are already taking steps to update their prescriptions if health officials decide it is necessary.
Pfizer and Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccines are made with new technologies that are easy to update. So-called mRNA vaccines use a piece of genetic code for the spike protein that lines the coronavirus, so that your immune system can learn to recognize and fight the real virus.
If a variant with a peak mutant protein emerges that the original vaccine cannot recognize, companies would trade that piece of genetic code for a better match – if and when regulators decide it is necessary.
Updating other COVID-19 vaccines can be more complex. The AstraZeneca vaccine, for example, uses a harmless version of a cold virus to carry the spike protein gene into the body. An update would require the growth of cold viruses with the updated spike gene.
The Food and Drug Administration said that the updated COVID-19 vaccine studies will not have to be as large or as long as for the first generation of vaccines. Instead, a few hundred volunteers could receive experimental doses of a renewed vaccine and have their blood checked for signs that it has boosted the immune system, as well as the original vaccines.
It is more difficult to decide whether the virus has transformed itself enough to modify the images.
Globally, health officials will monitor coronavirus mutations to detect vaccine-resistant mutations. They would also have to decide whether a reformulated vaccine should protect against more than one variant.
Overall, the process would be similar to what already happens with the flu vaccine. Influenza viruses mutate much faster than coronaviruses, so flu vaccines are adjusted each year and must protect against various strains.
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