Vaccine manufacturers are investigating whether booster doses can provide better protection against coronavirus variants, said Andy Slavitt, the senior White House advisor to Covid’s response, during an interview with the Washington Post on Thursday.
The White House official said Johnson & Johnson is already studying a second dose of its Covid-19 vaccine, and he noted that Moderna and Pfizer / BioNTech, which currently have vaccines authorized in the United States, “have plans to continue to update vaccines and, if necessary, create boosters in the future if additional mutants continue to exist, as they likely will. “
Johnson & Johnson said it is studying the possibility of reforming its Covid-19 vaccine to deal with the potential impact of new strains. In November, the company announced that it had started a large-scale phase 3 clinical trial for a two-dose regimen of its coronavirus vaccine.
“If you have the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, could you get another vaccine later?” Slavitt said. “And I will give you two parts to that answer quickly. One is: Johnson and Johnson, people should know, is currently evaluating whether – how his vaccine works with two doses – in other words, with his own booster. So, pending the results on that, if the FDA has to say if the vaccine is approved first, there will be – there may be a second injection of Johnson and Johnson. “
“More broadly, can you mix and match? If you have one, can you get another one later? And the answer is: try to remember which one you had because that’s what was tested … but if you forgot, don’t panic. You can get another one and the CDC says that it is good in this case “, he continued.
An independent advisory committee from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will meet on February 26 to consider recommending a single dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine for emergency use authorization.
Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 single-dose vaccine was shown to be 66% effective in preventing moderate and severe illnesses in a global Phase 3 trial, but 85% effective against serious illnesses, the company previously announced.
“Although a potentially safe and effective single-dose preventive COVID-19 vaccine has significant benefits, particularly in a pandemic scenario, Janssen’s COVID-19 vaccine program was designed to be extremely thorough and driven by science. As such, we are investigating multiple doses and dosing regimens to assess their long-term effectiveness, ”said a November statement from J&J.
Slavitt also said that the administration is working to ensure that vaccines work against the variants.
“We are now testing in vitro. … The good news to start with is the most prominent strain that came here, B.1.1.7, vaccines work well – Pfizer and Moderna. The South African, who is close to the Brazilian … they are … less effective, but above a threshold, “said Slavitt.