Virologist Ciesek shows initial data on Omikron BA.4/5: "Adapted vaccines are superior"
Created: 09/22/2022, 12:40 p.m
By: Bettina Menzel
Sandra Ciesek, Director of the Institute for Medical Virology in Frankfurt, at a federal press conference (archive image, February 2021).
© Stefan Boness/Ipon/ IMAGO
A study by virologist Sandra Ciesek and other scientists provides initial data on BA.4 and BA.5 vaccines.
For future variants, she recommends rethinking the strategy.
Frankfurt – The omicron variant of the corona virus is considered more contagious.
The BA.4 and BA.5 sublines also manage to better circumvent the immune response of vaccinated and recovered people.
The virologist Sandra Ciesek and other scientists have now examined in a study what effect "old" vaccines have compared to the vaccines adapted to Omikron.
Ciesek draws a clear conclusion - and also recommends a new strategy for the future.
This was the study design: Initial data on BA.4 and BA.5 vaccines
BA.1 was the first omicron subtype to sweep Europe, but it was quickly supplanted by the even more contagious BA.2 sublineage.
BA.5 now dominates the infection process in Germany.
The first data on the special BA.4 and BA.5 vaccines are now available, as the virologist Sandra Ciesek announced on Twitter on Thursday.
The corresponding study was published on the preprint server
bioRxiv
on Wednesday .
This is a prior publication, so colleagues have not yet reviewed the study.
In addition to Sandra Ciesek and other scientists from the Goethe University in Frankfurt, researchers from the vaccine manufacturers BioNTech and Pfizer were also involved as authors.
Among them were the BionTech founders Özlem Türeci and Uğur Şahin, who are themselves immunologists.
According to the study design, vaccinates with a BA.4/BA.5 breakthrough infection were compared with data from animal experiments.
A vaccine specially adapted to the omicron sublines was therefore investigated in a mouse model.
Among other things, the researchers compared the immune reactions in mice that had been immunized twice and in mice that had not been vaccinated or had recovered.
The study provides these results - the virologist draws a conclusion
According to the study results, genes from the BA.4 and BA.5 sublineages developed a broad immune response that was significantly broader than BA.1 genes.
However, if mice were pre-immunized twice with the "old" vaccines, a so-called monovalent BA4./BA.5 booster led to the highest number of neutralizing antibodies and thus to better vaccination protection.
Monovalent vaccines target only one virus variant of the coronavirus, bivalent vaccines have two components and are therefore intended to work against the original virus and the omicron variant.
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The virologist drew a clear conclusion from these findings: "BA.4/5 vaccine is superior, especially in the BA.5 variant that is currently circulating," says Ciesek.
As a booster in the mouse model, however, the monovalent BA4./5 vaccine is superior to the bivalent one.
"But this is not available monovalently - only bivalently," the virologist continued.
She therefore recommends reconsidering the strategy for future variants and possibly also allowing monovalent vaccines into the approval process at the same time.
Studies of BA.4 and BA.5 vaccines in humans are ongoing.
About two weeks ago, the European Medicines Agency approved a corona vaccine from Biontech and Pfizer, which is also effective against the omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5.
Already at the beginning of September, vaccines from Biontech and Pfizer as well as Moderna against the omicron subvariant BA.1 were approved.
The Stiko Standing Vaccination Committee recommends basic immunization and a booster vaccination for everyone over the age of twelve.
Another booster vaccination should be given to people over the age of 60 and everyone over the age of five who has an underlying disease and is therefore at increased risk of severe Covid 19 courses.
A study from Portugal showed a relatively high protection against BA.5 infection in omicron convalescents with additional vaccination.