Enlarge / A vial of COMIRNATY (Pfizer/BioNTech) and a vial of Moderna COVID-19 vaccines. (credit score: Getty | Marcos del Mazo)
The mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines made by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna have confirmed extremely efficient at priming our immune methods to combat the pandemic coronavirus—stopping substantial quantities of an infection, extreme illness, and dying all through a number of waves of variants. However, regardless of their related design and efficacy, the 2 vaccines will not be precisely the identical—and our immune methods do not reply to them in the identical means.
An early trace of this was some real-world knowledge that discovered startling variations within the effectiveness of the 2 vaccines, regardless of each pictures performing practically identically in Section III medical trials—95 p.c and 94 p.c. Amid final yr’s delta wave, a Mayo Clinic examine discovered that Pfizer’s effectiveness towards an infection dipped to 42 p.c whereas Moderna’s solely fell to 76 p.c.
In accordance with a brand new examine in Science Translational Medication, such variations may be defined by proof that the 2 vaccines spur the immune system to provide barely totally different antibodies towards SARS-CoV-2.
Learn 5 remaining paragraphs | Feedback
