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Moderna announced today (January 25) plans for testing two different booster vaccines aimed at the SARS-CoV-2 variant B.1.351, also known as 501Y.V2, that emerged in South Africa and has now spread to numerous countries.
“The virus is changing its stripes, and we will change to make sure we can beat the virus where it’s going,” Stephen Hoge, the president of Moderna, tells The Washington Post.
A study from Moderna posted to the preprint server bioRxiv today that has not yet been peer-reviewed reports that its vaccine produced neutralizing antibodies against several SARS-CoV-2 variants, including B.1.351 and B.1.1.7, the latter of which was first spotted in the UK and is rapidly becoming common in other countries. But antibody levels produced in response to B.1.351 were about six times lower than prior variants. Moderna’s statement says that these antibody titers “remain above levels that are expected to be protective,” ...
