A new anti-Covid vaccine from the Pfizer-BioNTech laboratory, targeting two sub-variants of the Omicron strain, “should be approved in the fall”, indicated the European Medicines Agency (EMA), Wednesday, August 10. This announcement comes at a time when the current vaccines against Covid-19, if they make it possible to avoid serious forms, are not very effective in stopping the transmission of the virus and its mutations.
According to Public Health France, three to four months after the complete primary vaccination, the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines are only 19.8% and 27.4% effective against Omicron, the majority coronavirus variant in France. To strengthen its vaccine arsenal, which seems almost obsolete, the Ministry of Health therefore announced at the end of July, during a press briefing, the arrival of new vaccines. “in the coming months”.
Five new vaccines
These are first of all two messenger RNA vaccines, developed by the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna laboratories. These bivalent vaccines protect against both the original Wuhan virus and against Omicron.
Pfizer is even working on two new products simultaneously: one targeting the Omicron BA.1 sub-variant (which is no longer predominant in Europe) and which has “significantly higher neutralizing antibody responses against Omicron BA.1” that the vaccine currently used, explains the laboratory in a press release published on June 25; the other targeting the BA.4 and BA.5 sub-lineage, the majority in France.
Moderna has also developed a vaccine specific to Omicron. If it has been the subject, like the vaccines produced by Pfizer, of an evaluation by the European Medicines Agency since July 22, its use was approved on Monday August 15 in the United Kingdom by the British medicines regulator.
The third vaccine, developed by the Spanish laboratory Hipra, is described as “a bivalent recombinant protein vaccine”. Also under evaluation by the EMA, it may be used as a booster dose for people aged 16 and over if authorized in the European Union.
Finally, the French Sanofi vaccine should soon arrive in vaccination centers. It is a recombinant protein vaccine, which uses spike proteins from the coronavirus as an antigen to help the body recognize it. Suitable for use as a booster dose, it shows “72% efficiency” against symptomatic forms of the Omicron variant, indicates the laboratory on its website.
An epidemic recovery expected in the fall
The use of these new vaccines is an issue in the fight against the coronavirus epidemic. If France is currently recording a clear epidemic decline, with 20,000 daily cases of Covid-19, against more than 120,000 at the peak of the seventh wave in early July, health authorities remain cautious. A “Epidemic resumption in the fall or winter is expected due to the decline in population immunity over time and the greater transmissibility of coronaviruses in the cold season”,indicated the Scientific Council in its opinion issued on July 19.
For the time being, no precise date for the marketing of these five vaccines has been revealed by the health authorities. The objective is however that they be used during the vaccination booster campaign, “which could be open to people under 60 from the fall”, emphasizes the Scientific Council. Currently, only immunocompromised people, pregnant women, people under 60 “at risk” and people over 80 can get their second booster dose.