The World Health Organization (WHO) has issued a press release on the antigen composition of the COVID-19 vaccines.

The specialized agency of the United Nations said Thursday that vaccine manufacturers should design updates that not goal the unique strain of SARS-CoV-2.

“While currently approved COVID-19 vaccines, including those based on the index virus, proceed to offer protection against severe disease, the TAG-CO-VAC advises moving away from the inclusion of the index virus in future formulations of COVID-19 vaccines,” the WHO stated on its website.

TAG-CO-VAC is the WHO’s Technical Advisory Group on COVID-19 Vaccine Composition. The advisory group is tasked to convene recurrently to evaluate the implications of newer mutations for the antigen composition of future vaccines.

For this yr, TAG-CO-VAC is anticipated to satisfy at the very least twice. The primary one was scheduled in May, and a follow-up ought to be done about six months later. The group officially convened on May 11-12 to debate the most recent data on circulating SARS-CoV-2 variants and vaccine composition.

Last yr, TAG-CO-VAC stated that the target of updating the COVID-19 vaccine antigen composition was to reinforce vaccine-induced immune responses to currently circulating coronavirus variants. Should the group find the necessity to change formulations, it will advise the WHO to tell all vaccine manufacturers.

The newest suggestion of the group to ditch the unique strain in future formulations is as a result of several reasons. Considered one of which has to do with the index virus and other earlier strains not circulating in humans. One more reason is how the unique strain elicits undetectable or very low levels of neutralizing antibodies against the newer variants.

The third reason cited by the group has something to do with the concentration of the composition. By including the index virus within the bivalent or multivalent vaccines and boosters, the concentration of the brand new goal antigens could also be lower. This decreases the magnitude of the humoral immune response against the currently circulating variants.

TAG-CO-VAC acknowledged the constraints of the available data on the timing, specific mutations, antigenic characteristics and potential public health risks of future variants. Information on the cross-reactivity of immune responses elicited by newer strains can be limited. Meanwhile, data on candidate vaccines against XBB.1 descendent lineage are still limited to animal models.

Despite the constraints, the advisory group said it continues to encourage the long run development of COVID-19 vaccines that enhance mucosal immunity for improved protection against viral infection and reduce the transmission of SARS-CoV-2, especially within the post-pandemic era.

Published by Medicaldaily.com