Clinical trial of mRNA universal influenza vaccine candidate begins

Re:Clinical trial of mRNA universal influenza vaccine candid... by amluto on Monday May 15, 2023 @09:31PM (#35956784)

The bivalent booster was pretty much on target in late 2022 and the beginning of 2023, and if it had been anywhere near as effective as the original two-dose series, I would have expected rather better results than this:

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/pdfs/mm7148e1-H.pdf Table 3

These are somewhat less unimpressive (IMO) numbers here:

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/wr/pdfs/mm7205e1-H.pdf

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2215471

I don’t think one can draw a conclusion as to what exactly is wrong. IMO it’s too bad that Novavax flubbed their vaccine rollout so badly — it would have given valuable comparison data.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Clinical trial of mRNA universal influenza vaccine candid... by revelio on Wednesday May 17, 2023 @04:00AM (#35972452)

Conclusions are possible, the causes are known. You aren't going to get it from the CDC though.

The problem is the first round of vaccines caused immune fixation. The boosters failed because the body can't tell the difference between such similar proteins and made antibodies for the 2019 spike variant instead of the one the booster was targeting, thinking it already knew what to do.

This was covered up during approvals by redefining the success criteria as elevated levels of antibodies to "spike protein" without being specific about which one, and then ignoring actual effectiveness numbers (which were zero or negative).

[ Parent | on HN ]