Moderna is Designing a New Vaccine to Fight Against COVID-19 Variants
Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine is probably still protective against a virus strain first found in South Africa, but the Massachusetts biotech on Monday said it planned to soon start testing a booster shot tailored to protect people against that variant.
Moderna’s two-dose COVID-19 vaccine won US authorization in December and has since been rolled out to millions of people. A large-scale study last year found the shot was overwhelmingly protective against COVID-19, being about 94% effective at preventing symptomatic disease.
But infectious-disease experts have grown increasingly concerned with the recent rise of several variants, in particular one, known as B.1.351, that was first identified in South Africa. That version of the virus has 10 mutations in the spike protein, which is the target of the leading COVID-19 vaccines, including Moderna’s.
