Autumn ‘super-booster’ jab as Covid cases surge
THE over-50s are likely to receive an updated Covid jab this autumn that has been specifically designed to protect against Omicron, it has emerged.
The ‘super-booster’ from Moderna is expected to get the green light from drugs regulators within weeks.
Unofficially named ‘214’, it uses mRNA molecules to programme the immune system to protect against two types of Covid – the original Wuhan strain and Omicron.
The latter, which emerged in South Africa last winter, is now globally dominant.
Last Friday, the influential European Medicines Agency (EMA) issued a promising statement saying it believed Moderna’s updated vaccine ‘may provide some advantages in widening the immune response’ in recipients, compared to getting a booster designed to protect against an older strain alone.
Other companies including Pfizer-BioNTech are also working on so-called ‘bivalent’ vaccines, which target two strains.
Welcoming the development of such jabs more generally, the EMA said ‘bivalent vaccines could be considered … for use as boosters’.
Moderna has already held detailed discussions with UK officials about a large-scale purchase of their 214 jab for the autumn campaign, in which a booster is set to be offered to 30million people – just under half the UK’s total population.
Dr Paul Burton, Moderna’s chief medical officer, said the Government has expressed ‘definite interest’ in buying it. The firm has been busy manufacturing hundreds of millions of doses on an ‘at risk’ basis, anticipating that regulators will approve it.
Late last month, Moderna released positive results showing their 214 vaccine provided strong protection against Omicron BA4 and BA5 – the two sub-variants that are driving the current wave of infection.
Dr Burton said the jab gave ‘a strong, powerful antibody response’ against BA4 and BA5 which was ‘probably long-lasting’.
He added: ‘I think the conclusions are that boosting … with 214, really could be a turning point in our fight against the SARS-Cov-2 virus.’
Meanwhile, Pfizer-BioNtech is working on two refreshed jabs also aimed at Omicron. One is a bivalent like Moderna’s while the other targets Omicron alone. Pfizer’s chief executive Albert Bourla said preliminary results showed both ‘elicit a substantially higher immune response against Omicron than we’ve seen to date’.
This offers Ministers a second option for the autumn booster.
If and when the EMA approves any of these vaccines, they will still have to get the green light from the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency to be used in Britain. Initially, autumn boosters were only to be given to over-65s and younger people deemed clinically at risk from Covid. However, amid concern over waning population immunity and rising Covid rates, that changed last month. The plan is now for all over-50s plus at-risk younger people to receive them.
Infectious disease expert Professor Paul Hunter of the University of East Anglia said: ‘It makes sense to use a bivalent vaccine.’
‘A turning point in our fight against the virus’
Covid infection levels have jumped almost a third in a week, according to the latest Office for National Statistics Infection Survey. Around 2.3million people had the virus last week, or one in 29 people. But that is still less than half the March peak of 4.9million.
Latest figures show Covid-related hospitalisations rising fast with about 1,500 a day now, triple the rate of a month ago.
Covid-related deaths are still trending slightly downwards and are currently running at about 100 a day. However, deaths tend to lag new hospitalisations by a couple of weeks, meaning they could soon start to rise.