Vaccine makers are investigating whether booster doses could provide better protection against coronavirus variants, Andy Slavitt, the White House senior adviser to Covid response, said in an interview with the Washington Post on Thursday.
The White House official said Johnson & Johnson is already studying a second dose of its Covid-19 vaccine, noting that Moderna and Pfizer / BioNTech, which currently have vaccines approved in the United States, “ have plans to keep updating their vaccines. and create boosters as needed if there are more mutants, as they probably will be. “
Johnson & Johnson has said it is investigating whether the Covid-19 vaccine should be modified to address the potential impact of new strains. In November, the company announced that it had started a large-scale phase 3 study for a two-dose regimen of its coronavirus vaccine.
“If you have the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, could you get another vaccine later?” Slavitt said. And I’ll give you two parts of that answer soon. One is: Johnson and Johnson, people may know, are currently evaluating whether – how their vaccine fares with two doses – in other words, with their own booster. So, pending the results on that, pending what the FDA has to say if the vaccine is approved in the first place, there will be a second shot of Johnson and Johnson. “
“Broader: can you mix and match? If you have one, can you take another later? And the answer is, try to remember which one you had because that’s what was tested … but if you forgot, don’t panic. You can take another one and the CDC says that’s fine in that case, ”he continued.
The independent advisory committee of a U.S. Food and Drug Administration will meet on Feb. 26 to consider whether a single dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine should be recommended for emergency authorization.
Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 single-shot vaccine was found to be 66% effective in preventing moderate and severe disease in a global phase 3 study, but 85% effective against serious disease, the company previously announced.
“While a potentially safe and effective single-dose preventive COVID-19 vaccine would have significant benefits, especially in a pandemic environment, Janssen’s COVID-19 vaccine program is designed to be extremely thorough and scientifically based. As such, we are investigating multiple doses and dosing regimens to evaluate their long-term efficacy, ”said a statement by J&J in November.
Slavitt also said the administration is working to make sure the vaccines work against variants.
“We are now testing in vitro. … The good news to start with is the most prominent strain to come here, the B.1.1.7, for which the vaccines work well – the Pfizer and the Moderna. The South African, which is close to the Brazilian… they are… less effective, but above a threshold, ”Slavitt said.