Development of seasonal COVID jabs won’t be needed: report

Fears that candidate vaccines would be hampered by the mutations of the SARS-CoV-2 have been allayed by critical new Australian research, while a report from the CSIRO has revealed there will likely be one hugely positive difference compared to the flu vaccine.

Fears that vaccine development would be hampered by the mutations of SARS-CoV-2 have been allayed by critical new Australian research.

And The University of Queensland reports its candidate vaccine will cover the newly evolved strain and their human trials are on target.

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The research from the CSIRO has also revealed that it is unlikely that vaccines will need to be developed seasonally, as is the case with influenza.

The CSIRO report has revealed most vaccines under development worldwide have been modelled on the original D-strain which was more common early in the pandemic. Since then, the virus has evolved to the globally dominant G-strain, which now accounts for about 85 per cent of published SARS-CoV-2 genomes.

There had been fears the G-strain, or D614G mutation within the main protein on the surface of the virus, would negatively impact vaccines under development but researchers have found no evidence the change would adversely impact the efficacy of vaccine candidates.

CSIRO chief executive Dr Larry Marshall said the research was critically important in the race to develop a vaccine.

“This brings the world one step closer to a safe and effective vaccine to protect people and save lives. Research like this, at speed, is only possible through deep collaboration with partners both in Australia and around the world,” he said.

Dr SS Vasan, CSIRO’s dangerous pathogens team leader and the senior author of the paper, said this was good news for the hundreds of vaccines in development around the world, with the majority targeting the spike protein.

“Most COVID-19 vaccine candidates target the virus’ spike protein as this binds to the ACE2 receptors in our lungs and airways, which are the entry point to infect cells,” Dr Vasan said.

“Despite this D614G mutation to the spike protein, we confirmed through experiments and modelling that vaccine candidates are still effective. We’ve also found the G-strain is unlikely to require frequent ‘vaccine matching’ where new vaccines need to be developed seasonally to combat the virus strains in circulation, as is the case with influenza,” he said.

CSIRO recently concluded preclinical studies for two vaccine candidates from Inovio Pharmaceuticals and the University of Oxford, at the Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness, with peer-reviewed reports to be published in the coming months.