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Chris Smith
Guest
- Moderna conducted tests that show its vaccine is effective against the South African coronavirus mutation, but it’s less effective than expected.
- The news follows similar studies that showed COVID-19 survivors might get reinfected with the new strain, as it can elude neutralizing antibodies in plasma.
- Moderna is already working on a vaccine booster shot that would target the South African mutation.
The first year of the novel coronavirus pandemic ended with an incredible scientific achievement. Three distinct COVID-19 vaccine candidates were approved for emergency use after completing the Phase 3 stage of clinical trials. In addition to the Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, and AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccines that cleared the first regulatory hurdles last year, several other vaccines from Russia and China were being administered to the population at large even before Phase 3 trial results were available. But just as the US, Canada, EU, UK, and Israel were starting vaccination, news started coming in about new, potentially dangerous coronavirus mutations.
The UK and South Africa SARS-CoV-2 mutations were acknowledged in mid-December, prompting a wave of concern. Soon after that, new mutations were found in Brazil and California. Public health officials and scientists were worried that some of the new strains might evade vaccines and other antibody-based treatments. Vaccine makers like Pfizer and BioNTech already ran successful experiments proving their drug would work against the UK mutation. But other reports showed that the South African strain could evade monoclonal antibodies and plasma antibodies, which could lead to reinfection of COVID-19 survivors. Moderna now says that it’s working on a vaccine booster shot that will target the African strain (B.1.351).
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Moderna is developing a booster vaccine for the South African coronavirus strain originally appeared on BGR.com on Mon, 25 Jan 2021 at 21:09:40 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Via BRG - Boy Genius Report