Moderna claims its updated vaccine best combats the newer Covid variant BA.2.86.
According to Moderna, its vaccine generated an 8.7-fold increase in the production of neutralising antibodies in people against BA.2.86.
Jacqueline Miller, Moderna’s head of infectious diseases, said, “We think this is news people will want to hear as they prepare to go out and get their fall boosters.”
She added that this data should help ease the concerns of regulators.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had previously said BA.2.86 might be more capable of infecting individuals who had COVID before or received earlier vaccine shots.
This subvariant, an offshoot of Omicron, carries more than 35 mutations in crucial parts of the virus, making it distinct from XBB.1.5, the dominant variant for most of this year 2023 and the target of the updated vaccines.
Moderna has already shared this promising news with regulators and submitted it for peer review publication. The retooled vaccine, still awaiting approval from the US Food and Drug Administration, is expected to be available later this month or in early October.
Notably, Moderna and rival vaccine manufacturers Novavax and Pfizer in partnership with BioNTech have developed their vaccines to combat the XBB.1.5 subvariant as well.
Just last month, both Moderna and Pfizer announced that their new vaccines seemed effective against another subvariant known as EG.5 during initial testing.
In Europe, regulators have endorsed the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine for use against XBB.1.5, but are yet to announce any decision on Moderna’s updated vaccine. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), BA.2.86 has been detected in several countries, including Switzerland, South Africa, Israel, Denmark, the US, and Britain.
Experts are cautiously optimistic, believing that although monitoring this variant is important, it’s unlikely to trigger a severe wave of illness and death.
The global vaccination efforts and immunity from prior infections should provide some protection against it.