2023-09-07 19:46:31
WEDNESDAY, Sept. 6, 2023 (HealthDay News) — There’s good news for those concerned regarding the new COVID variant known as BA.2.86: Moderna Inc. announced Wednesday that its updated vaccine effectively resisted this highly mutated version of the virus.
Although approval for the latest version of the vaccine is still pending from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the company offered a good reason why the agency should approve the new dose for this fall: it generated an 8.7-fold increase in neutralizing antibodies once morest BA.2.86, also known as Pirola.
“These results demonstrate that our updated COVID-19 vaccine generates a strong human immune response once morest the highly mutated BA.2.86 variant. Together with our previously reported results showing an equally effective response once morest the EG.5 and FL.1.5.1 variants , these data confirm that our updated COVID-19 vaccine will continue to be an important tool for protection as we enter the fall vaccination season,” Moderna President Dr. Stephen Hoge said in a news release from the company.
Public health officials are already closely watching the BA.2.86 variant, which has more than 30 mutations compared to previous Omicron variants. The emergence of BA.2.86, in addition to the increasing prevalence of the EG.5 and FL1.5.1 variants, underscores the need for an updated COVID vaccine, which can help reduce severe illness and hospitalizations, the company added.
Fortunately, early laboratory tests on the new variant suggest that it is not as effective at evading immunity as initially feared.
Scientists, including those in China and Sweden, are finding that the variant appears to be less of a concern than initially thought.
So far, BA.2.86 has spread to the United States and 10 other countries. Denmark has reported most of the sequences. In all, regarding three dozen sequences have been observed in a global repository over the past month, CNN reported.
“My friends, this is not the second coming of Omicron. If it was, it’s safe to say we would know by now,” said Dr. Bill Hanage, an epidemiologist who is co-director of the Center for the Dynamics of Communicable Diseases at the University of Harvard, in a social media post.
In China, researchers determined that the BA.2.86 variant presents differently to the immune system compared to earlier COVID variants and may evade some immunity, CNN reported.
Among the findings, it was found that there was a two-fold decrease in the ability of vaccination and recent infection to neutralize BA.2.86, compared with XBB.1.5 variant viruses, said Yunlong Cao of the Innovation Center Biomedical Science from Peking University to CNN. But it was also 60% less infectious than the XBB.1.5 variants.
“I would say that it will circulate slowly in the population. It will not be able to compete with other rapidly prevailing variants,” Cao said, referring to the EG.5 and FL.1.5.1 variants.
Meanwhile, in experiments at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, the researchers used blood from human donors collected in late 2022 and from late August to test the impact of antibodies once morest BA.2.86.
Although older blood samples were unable to stop BA.2.86, those obtained later did better, CNN reported.
“Overall, it doesn’t appear to be as dire a situation as Omicron’s original appearance,” lead researcher Benjamin Murrell wrote in a social media post.
“It is not yet clear whether BA.2.86 (or its descendants) will outperform currently circulating variants, and I don’t think there are data on its severity, but our antibodies do not appear to be completely ineffective once morest it,” he noted.
Both studies had limitations, including that the researchers were testing models of the virus and not the actual virus, CNN reported.
Still, the results were encouraging.
“The news is better than I expected,” Dr. Ashish Jha, a former White House COVID-19 response coordinator, said in a social media post. “AND [esto] makes me feel more encouraged that the upcoming new vaccine will have real benefit once morest the current dominant variant [EG.5]as well as once morest BA.2.86”.
More information
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more regarding COVID variants.
SOURCES: Moderna Inc., news release, Sept. 6, 2023; CNN.
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