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I applaud the studies undertaken by Pfizer and Moderna for measuring vaccine efficacy against variants. We need to understand whether the concerning variants are more transmissible, cause more severe illness and evade vaccine-induced immunity (1). All these uncertainties may affect existing therapies, vaccines, and diagnostic tests.
The ability to evade vaccine-induced immunity would be the most concerning because once a large proportion of the population is vaccinated, there will be immune pressure that could allow emergence of “immunity escape mutants.” (2) It could potentially spark devastating waves of infections and deaths.
The report that "Moderna plans booster doses to counter variants" is very interesting [1]. The main question is whether giving booster doses can overcome the problem of new COVID-19 variants such as African variant. Regarding the COVID-19 variant, the molecular change occurs and it might further alter epitope properties. There might be a vaccine escape phenomenon and if vaccine escape occurs, the first generation vaccine might not be effective. Therefore, vaccine boostering might not be the way to correspond to the new COVID-19 variants.
Re: Covid-19: Moderna plans booster doses to counter variants
Dear Editor,
I applaud the studies undertaken by Pfizer and Moderna for measuring vaccine efficacy against variants. We need to understand whether the concerning variants are more transmissible, cause more severe illness and evade vaccine-induced immunity (1). All these uncertainties may affect existing therapies, vaccines, and diagnostic tests.
The ability to evade vaccine-induced immunity would be the most concerning because once a large proportion of the population is vaccinated, there will be immune pressure that could allow emergence of “immunity escape mutants.” (2) It could potentially spark devastating waves of infections and deaths.
Reference:
1. SARS-CoV-2 Variants of Concern in the United States—Challenges and Opportunities
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2776739?resultClick=1
2. Emerging SARS-CoV-2 Variants
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/more/science-and-research/scie...
Competing interests: No competing interests