Moderna Says Vaccine Protects Against All Known Variants
Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA) announced evidence that its COVID-19 vaccine is protective against all variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus detected to date, including two strains first detected in the United Kingdom and South Africa. The level of protective antibodies against the U.K. strain, B.1.1.7, was equivalent to those against earlier variants. But while the antibodies to B.1.351, the South African strain, were believed to be sufficient to be protective against the disease, they were reduced, leading the company to move ahead with testing a new version of the vaccine aimed at that variant.
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Moderna's study was conducted in the laboratory by exposing blood serum from eight clinical trial participants aged 18 to 55 who had received the two-dose regimen of its mRNA-1273 vaccine and from two nonhuman primates to all key emerging variants of SARS-CoV-2. The level of neutralizing antibodies to all the variants were judged to be protective, but antibodies to the South African variant were reduced six-fold compared with the response to earlier variants.
Source Fool.com
