Biopharmaceutical company Moderna (NYSE:MRNA) has released data on so-called "breakthrough cases" of COVID-19 it says supports the need for vaccine booster shots.
The U.S. drugmaker shared a new analysis from its phase three study that showed the incidence of breakthrough COVID-19 cases, which occur in fully vaccinated people, was less frequent in a group of trial participants who were more recently inoculated, suggesting immunity for earlier groups had started to wane.
There were 88 identified breakthrough cases out of 11,431 people vaccinated between December and March, Moderna said in a news release, compared with 162 breakthrough cases out of 14,746 trial participants vaccinated in July through October of 2020.
There were also fewer severe cases of COVID-19 cases in the group that received the vaccine more recently, according to a manuscript of the results shared by the company. Three COVID-19 related hospitalizations occurred in the group that got the shots early on, resulting in two deaths, according to the data. There were no hospitalizations or deaths in the group that recently received the vaccine.
The new data comes days before a key U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) vaccine advisory committee meeting, when a panel of outside experts will debate whether there is enough data to support widely distributing booster shots across the U.S. and other countries.
Earlier this week, FDA scientists declined to take a position on whether to support booster shots of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, saying U.S. regulators haven’t verified all the available evidence.
Widely distributing booster shots to the public is "not appropriate" at this time, the authors, including two senior FDA officials and multiple scientists from the World Health Organization (WHO), wrote in a decision on the matter.
