Moderna says Covid-19 vaccine appears effective against variants

Pharma company Moderna announced on Tuesday its Covid-19 vaccine showed promise in a lab setting against coronavirus variants, including the Delta variant that originated in India.

“We remain committed to studying emerging variants, generating data and sharing it as it becomes available,” Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel said in a press release. “These new data are encouraging and reinforce our belief that the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine should remain protective against newly detected variants.”

The two-dose mRNA vaccine produced neutralizing antibodies against delta as well as beta and eta, the latter two being variants first found in South Africa and Nigeria, respectively.

Testing was carried out on blood serum from eight participants one week after receiving the second dose of the vaccine.

Nevertheless, it remained unclear how the vaccines would perform in real world scenarios against variants of the virus.

Shares of Moderna were up over 4% in intraday trading after it announced the lab results.

Delta was already present in 92 countries and was expected to become the dominant variant of the disease worldwide.