Protection from Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine remains elevated after first 3 months
Protection from the COVID-19 vaccine candidate developed by Moderna Inc. and the NIH remained elevated 3 months after delivery of the second dose, study findings showed.
Alicia T. Widge, MD, an allergist-immunologist at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and colleagues reported on 34 healthy adult participants in three separate age groups who received two injections of the vaccine, called mRNA-1273, at a dose of 100 μg.
The vaccine was shown to be 94.1% efficacious against COVID-19 in a phase 3 trial and will soon be reviewed by the FDA for emergency use.
According to Widge and colleagues, the vaccine “produced high levels of binding and neutralizing antibodies that declined slightly over time, as expected, but they remained elevated in all participants 3 months after the booster vaccination.”
“Clinicians should view this as positive news that mRNA-1273 vaccination produced sustained high levels of binding and neutralizing antibodies in all participants,” Widge said.
She said the data “suggest that immune responses to this vaccine are durable and could provide long-lasting immunity against SARS-CoV-2.”
“Viral immunity is highly variable, and it is difficult to predict at this stage how long lasting the immunity from this vaccine will be,” Widge said. “These results are very promising, showing that immune responses last at least 3 months after the boost dose. We hope to have data for 6 months after the boost soon.”
The vaccine has been tested exclusively in adults so far, but a recent filing on ClinicalTrials.gov suggests that Moderna will begin enrolling participants in a new trial testing a single dose of the vaccine in children as young as age 12 years.