For the first time since the start of the pandemic, COVID19 vaccines look set to receive an update. Here are some of the questions surrounding this new generation of vaccines. ⬇️
presented data showing that the shots had side effects similar to those of the original vaccines—including soreness at the injection site and fatigue—and induced strong antibody responses to both the original strain and Omicron BA.1. The companies also showed that the BA.1 vaccines prompted significant antibody responses to BA.4 and BA.5, although lower than that to BA.1.
The companies say clinical trials for the BA.4/BA.5 vaccines will begin next month; they need clinical data both for full approval of the vaccines—their recent submissions are only for emergency use authorization—and to help develop future updates. Presumably they will measure recipients’ antibody levels, but not the vaccine’s efficacy against infection or severe disease. Such trials are very expensive and were not done for the BA.1 shot either.
They found that the biggest effect came from administering any booster: On average, an additional dose of a vaccine coding for the ancestral virus’ spike protein resulted in an 11-fold increase in neutralizing antibodies against all variants. But strain-specific vaccines improved things slightly. Recipients of updated vaccines had, on average, antibody levels 1.5 times higher than those who received an ancestral strain vaccine.
Strain-adapted boosters had some benefit at the population level as well, according to Cromer’s models, although much depends on the existing levels of immunity in a population. If, for example, a population already has 86% protection against severe disease, ancestral-strain boosters could increase that to 98%, and updated boosters to 98.8%. That might not sound like much, Cromer admits, “but if you have a large population and limited hospital beds it can make a difference.
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