(MENAFN – The conversation)
The UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has approved a bivalent COVID booster vaccine, making it the first country in the world to do so.
Developed through Moderna, this vaccine has been approved for use in adults and is expected to be part of the upcoming autumn booster campaign in the UK.
But what is a bivalent vaccine and what effect can this booster have on the trajectory of the pandemic?Let’s take a look.
Read more: COVID vaccines: Our existing vaccines may be updated soon to target new variants, says immunology expert
The COVID vaccines and boosters we have lately, or first-generation, are “monovalent” vaccines. This means they target the original strain of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19).
A recent report reported that first-generation COVID vaccines prevented up to 20 million deaths internationally in their first year of use.
The emergence of new variants of SARS-CoV-2, variants of omicron, has been of great concern. Omicron variants are more wonderful than previous non-Omicron variants at evading our immunity to previous infections and vaccines.
While vaccines continue to provide coverage against death and hospitalization, recent studies have shown that the initial course of COVID vaccination offers limited coverage against symptomatic disease through the omicron variant.
Therefore, this second-generation bivalent or dual-variant vaccine targets both the ancestral strain of SARS-CoV-2 and the omicron VARIANT BA. 1. It has 25 micrograms of original coronavirus vaccine and 25 micrograms of vaccine that specifically targets the omicron variant.
Similarly, “multivalent” vaccines can protect against even more than two strains of a microbe; we don’t have multivalent vaccines for COVID yet.
Bivalent and multivalent vaccines are not new to health. For example, all flu vaccines found in the UK and the US are found in the UK and the US. The U. S. is quadrivalent and targets 4 other influenza strains.
The Gardasil-9 vaccine targets nine strains of the human papillomavirus, a common sexually transmitted infection. Meanwhile, the pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine, PPSV23, targets another 23 impressive strains of bacteria that cause pneumococcal disease, protective against pneumonia and meningitis, among others. other.
There are no known serious protective aspects for this new bivalent vaccine. All side effects observed at protection follow-up were very similar to those observed with the original booster dose of moderna. These are usually mild and increase on their own, such as fever, headache, fatigue. or pain at the injection site.
The MHRA’s approval of Moderna’s new bivalent vaccine is based on knowledge from a clinical trial involving more than 400 participants. The effects showed that a booster of the bivalent vaccine triggers a strong immune reaction opposite to the original Wuhan strain and the BA. 1 omicron.
Specifically, Moderna reported that in a combined Phase 2 and Phase 3 trial, a booster dose of the new bivalent vaccine increased neutralizing antibody levels compared to OMICRON BA. 1 approximately 8 times above baseline levels. This is an incredible neutralizing antibody reaction than the company’s existing one. monovalent memory.
In particular, omicron BA. 1, the first subvariant of omicron, however, BA. 5 is now the dominant variant in the UK and worldwide. opposite responses to BA. 4 and BA. 5 compared to the company’s existing reinforcement.
These effects are promising, but we will need to closely monitor confirmation that they translate beyond clinical trials and that the vaccine is effective against BA. 5 and possibly any new variants in the original word.
Meanwhile, Moderna has finished regulatory filings for its bivalent vaccine in other countries, adding Canada, Australia and the European Union. Pending approval, the vaccine is also expected to be available in the U. S. U. S. starting in the fall.
Other pharmaceutical companies, in addition to Pfizer and BioNTech, are also launching bivalent boosters to target omicron.
Read more: COVID vaccines: why instant boosters are offered to other vulnerable people in the UK, but not yet to other young, healthy people
When immunity from the initial doses of the vaccine decreases, boosters are a vital way to build our immunity. And there’s no doubt that the advent of this new bivalent vaccine from Moderna will provide really broad coverage to a lot of other people who oppose COVID, adding new variants as we enter the winter months.
At the same time, first-generation boosters are still very valuable, along with other precautions we can continue to take to prevent the spread of the virus and new variants. of others in case of illness and maintain intelligent hand hygiene.
COVID remains a risk and we anticipate the evolution of the virus. We may see the emergence of new variants, creating a need for multipurpose vaccines in the future.
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