Vaccine maker Moderna announced Monday that its new omicron-targeted booster shot reinforces a key line of immune defense by increasing levels of coronavirus-fighting antibodies that block BA.5.
presented this month about their bivalent coronavirus vaccine booster.
The data is encouraging because it shows that the bivalent booster shots, which were updated to match the BA.4 and BA.5 versions of the omicron variant and began to roll out in September, are providing protection against newer coronavirus variants ahead of a possible winter surge of cases.Moderna also said a preliminary analysis with a small number of subjects showed that the antibodies generated by the bivalent booster lost some potency against the challenging and rapidly growing BQ.1.
“Evolution is a dangerous thing to bet against. The virus keeps surprising us, and we need to be ready to update the vaccine,” said Stephen Hoge, Moderna’s president. But he added that he was encouraged by the high antibody levels induced by the booster shot as the country heads into winter. “I think we’re optimistic this BA.4/BA.5-containing bivalent is going to be sufficient to get us through,” Hoge said.scientists thinking about future booster strategies because the makers of both messenger RNA coronavirus vaccines have now presented convergent results showing their bivalent shots trigger a stronger response than their original formulations.But the news is somewhat of an artificial comparison to the general public because those original boosters are no longer available.
. But some scientists have questioned whether differences between the two groups of people that received each type of shot could be partially responsible for some of the advantage.
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