The third so-called booster dose of Moderna’s vaccine “significantly” increases the protection against infections and hospitalizations, but does not generate the level of immunity conferred by two doses against the old strains of the coronavirus.
“It’s hard to say,” concedes Moderna Canada’s medical director, Shehzad Iqbal, in an interview with The duty.
“When you look at the data on neutralization, it doesn’t come down to levels [de protection] against the ancestral strain. A comparison was made with one of the worst variants seen so far for the neutralizing effect, the Beta variant, which also had several mutations. As expected, looks worse, due to the huge amount of mutations [d’Omicron]. “
Other promising vaccines
His employer, a pioneer in new mRNA vaccine technology, claims he can develop new vaccines in 100 days. “Developing an mRNA vaccine only takes a few days,” says Iqbal. Then, we enter the manufacturing stage, to create the material. It can take between 40 and 60 days, depending on the amount of material you want to create. Then, we enter the phase of clinical tests. “
This is why, in addition to the booster doses of 50 µg and 100 µg with encouraging results published on Monday, the company is working on perfecting “multivalent vaccines”. These new vaccines “still target the spike, but different recombinant variants,” explains Shehzad Iqbal.
Data on the efficacy of these new generations of vaccines are expected “in the coming weeks”.
Skeptics who doubt the safety of these vaccines because of this rapid development should note that scientists have been working on mRNA technology for 10 years. “Even scientists were surprised at the efficiency of the technology,” says the man who has worked in the world of vaccinology throughout his career.
If the Omicron variant worries Mr. Iqbal, the future of the pandemic will hold other surprises for him, he himself concedes.
“The unknown is that we do not know how it will mutate. We are still in the first days of the disease, from the point of view of the virus. “
This text is taken from our newsletter “The Coronavirus Mail” of December 20, 2021. To subscribe click here.