President of Moderna: Certain strains of COVID “ hide better ” from vaccines

As new variants of COVID-19 emerge around the world, vaccine developers are closely monitoring how each will withstand their doses.

On the radar, new strains of the virus originating in the UK, South Africa and Brazil – all of which have been detected in the US – and some are more worrying than others.

“As we track the data from the pandemic, what we are seeing is that some of the new emerging strains hide better from these vaccines,” said Moderna, Inc. in Cambridge president Dr Stephen Hoge in “Good Morning America” on ABC. On Monday. “Now, at the moment, the good news is that vaccines appear to be effective against all emerging strains. It’s good news. But there are a few … obviously the South African one is cause for concern, as it looks like he might be hiding from the vaccine a little better than others.

Last week, Moderna announced that the company intends to conduct a clinical trial for a “booster” to better combat the South African variant after its studies showed its vaccine stimulates a weaker immune response to the mutation than against others.

The company said its vaccine should still provide sufficient protection against the variant. But the lower antibody count produced by the vaccine against the variant “may suggest a potential risk of early decline in immunity,” Moderna said in a statement.

“Our approach at Moderna is going to be to develop a booster vaccine, so if the South African variant or any other variant becomes a problem, we will be able to offer a way to … prevent it from hiding from the vaccine.” , ”Hoge said.

Asked how Moderna is able to develop a vaccine to treat new variants, Hoge said scientists can learn what a variant looks like from the sequencing information.

He called it “one of the great advancements happening in the science on a global scale associated with the pandemic.”

“What we’re then allowed to do with our technology, the mRNA, is actually copy and paste that information into our vaccine cassette, and then just start adding it to the vaccine, so your system immune system when you get the vaccine will also be able to identify the variant, ”Hoge said.