Covid-19: Moderna plans booster doses to counter variants
BMJ 2021; 372 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.n232 (Published 26 January 2021) Cite this as: BMJ 2021;372:n232Read our latest coverage of the coronavirus outbreak
- Janice Hopkins Tanne
- New York
The US drug company Moderna has announced that it is developing two new approaches to emerging variants of covid-19 after studies showed that its vaccine had a reduced level of neutralising titres to the South African variant, suggesting that immunity might wane.
Although the studies showed that Moderna’s current vaccine, known as mRNA-1273, was effective against both the UK and South African variants, a sixfold reduction was seen in neutralising titre levels to the South African variant.1
Moderna said that “out of an abundance of caution” it was starting a clinical programme of two booster approaches to increase immunity to the new variants. Moderna’s chief executive officer, Stéphane Bancel, said, “We believe it is imperative to be proactive as the virus evolves.”
In the first approach Moderna said that it would see whether a third “booster dose” of the current mRNA-1273 vaccine added to the approved two dose regimen would further increase neutralising titres against the emerging variants.
In a second approach the company said that …