A health care worker administers a bullet of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine to a woman at a pop-up vaccination site run by SOMOS Community Care during a coronavirus (COVID-19) infection in New York, January 29, 2021.
Mike Segar | Reuters
Moderna said Wednesday it has been added to doses of the new National Institute of Health Covid-19 vaccine designed to provide better protection against the highly contagious infectious coronavirus strain spreading in South Africa.
The vaccine – which Moderna calls mRNA-1273.351 – is ready for testing in an early-stage clinical trial to see if it can be used as a burn booster against South African snoring, also known B.1.351, the company said. Moderna has found that the current two-dose regimen generates a weaker immune response to the snoring from South Africa, although the company said it contains antibodies. the patient is still above expected levels of immunosuppression.
“Moderna is committed to making as many updates to our vaccine as necessary to control the spread of the disease,” company CEO Stephane Bancel said in a press release. we hope to show that increasing doses, if necessary, can be achieved at lower dose levels, allowing us to deliver significantly more doses to the global community by the end of 2021 and 2022 if necessary. “
U.S. health officials are increasingly concerned about new, emerging variants of the virus, particularly the B.1.351 strain, which has been proven to reduce the effectiveness of vaccines both on the market and under development. In the past few weeks, White House Chief Medical Adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci has been pushing Americans to get vaccinated as soon as possible before new potentially dangerous and even changes emerge. more dangerous.
On Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has identified 1,881 cases of the B.1.1.7 strain, first detected in the UK The U.S. agency said it has identified 46 cases of the B.1.351 strain, from South Africa, identified as in addition to five cases of P.1, a variant first detected in Brazil. As more people become infected, mutations are more likely to be even more troublesome, medical experts say.
On Monday, the Food and Drug Administration released updated guidance that said modified Covid-19 vaccines that work to protect against new, emerging variants could be authorized without the need for lengthy clinical trials . The FDA would clean up the new vaccine as a modification of a company-approved emergency use application, thus speeding up the regulatory review process.
Moderna first announced on January 25 that they were working on an upgraded bullet to protect against the outbreak in South Africa.
The company said Wednesday that it plans to evaluate three approaches to increase immunity. The first approach would use specific booster shots, such as mRNA-1273.351, but at a lower dose than the original vaccine. The latter would combine the original vaccine with a special variable vaccine into a single image at 50 micrograms or lower, Moderna said. The third one would test the third view of the original vaccine at a lower dosage.
Moderna said they also plan to test the original vaccine and the new booster picture as a two-dose regimen in people without coronavirus antibodies.
Separately, the company also announced that it expects to produce up to 1.4 billion doses of Covid-19 vaccine in 2022. They have also raised their global production estimate from 600 million doses to 700 million doses this year.
Moderna said the doses are 1.4 billion in 2022 with the assumption that the vaccine will be administered at the current rate of 100 micrograms. If the vaccine is found to be effective at a lower dosage level, the company said it could deliver up to 2.8 billion doses in 2022.
Moderna has a contract with the US government for 300 million doses. The company has shipped about 55 million doses to the U.S. to date. It plans to complete the delivery of the first 100 million doses to the U.S. by the end of the first quarter of 2021, the second 100 million doses by the end of May 2021 and the third 100 million doses by the end of July 2021.