The European Medicines Agency (EMA) on Wednesday approved an adapted version of the Covid vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech to counter infection with a widespread subvariant of the virus as winter approaches. If, since the beginning of May, the World Health Organization no longer considers Covid-19 a global health emergency, the virus continues to circulate in all countries, and new strains continue to emerge. The EMA announced in a press release that it had “recommended to authorize a vaccine (…) adapted targeting the Omicron XBB.1.5 subvariant”.
Target the strain that has become dominant in Europe
The European regulator had recommended in June that vaccines be updated to target the XBB strain of the virus which has become dominant in Europe and other parts of the world. The new approved messenger RNA vaccine, called Comirnaty Omicron XBB.1.5, is intended to prevent Covid-19 in adults and children from six months of age. “As Omicron XBB.1.5 is closely related to other variants currently in circulation, the vaccine should help to maintain optimal protection against (…) these other variants”, according to the EMA.
Adults and children over the age of five need a single injection “regardless of their Covid-19 vaccination history”, while younger children may receive “one or three doses depending on whether they have followed a cycle of primo-vaccination or had the Covid-19”, specified the organization which sits in Amsterdam.
Side effects are generally mild and short-lived, according to the regulator, who nevertheless clarified that “more serious side effects may occur in rare cases”.
First allowed in September 2020
Comirnaty was first authorized in the EU in September 2020. Adaptive versions targeting other Covid-19 subvariants received the green light from European health authorities in September 2022. Conventional vaccines seek to habituate the body to a virus, by introducing it directly into the body, in attenuated or defused form.
Those with messenger RNA, which appeared with the Covid-19 crisis, work differently. They focus on a small part of the virus – in the case of SARS-CoV-2, the so-called “Spike” protein – and aim to inject the body with strands of genetic instructions, called messenger RNA, instructing the body to make this protein.
Harmless in itself, this “spike” of the coronavirus is then detected by the immune system which will produce antibodies. Other pharmaceutical groups are preparing vaccines targeting the XBB line.