Moderna to make two totally different omicron boosters: one for US, one other for UK, EU

A vial containing Moderna COVID-19 booster vaccine at a vaccination center.

Enlarge / A vial containing Moderna COVID-19 booster vaccine at a vaccination heart. (credit score: Getty | SOPA Photographs)

The kind of COVID-19 booster dose you get later this yr may rely on the place you reside.

Vaccine maker Moderna is working up two omicron-targeting boosters for various nations. If the corporate’s plans pan out, it’ll mark the primary time that COVID-19 vaccines would goal totally different variations of the pandemic coronavirus elsewhere. Till now, all vaccines, together with boosters, have focused the ancestral pressure of SARS-CoV-2, first recognized in Wuhan, China.

Each of Moderna’s next-gen booster candidates are bivalent vaccines, which goal each the ancestral virus and a few model of omicron. One booster possibility targets BA.1—the model of omicron that first burst out of South Africa final November, inflicting a towering wave of an infection within the US in January 2022. That BA.1-based next-gen booster might be obtainable within the EU, UK,  Australia, and elsewhere later this month or early August. Moderna’s different booster possibility targets BA.4/5 and is meant to be used within the US. Nonetheless, it seemingly will not be prepared till early to mid-fall.

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