Coronavirus vaccine Moderna (Spikevax)

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The coronavirus vaccine Spikevax from the manufacturer Moderna is a modern mRNA vaccine. On the recommendation of the European Medicines Agency, the EU Commission provisionally approved the corona vaccine in the European Union on January 6, 2021. What is known about the effect, dosage and tolerability?

effectiveness

Clinical studies confirm that the Moderna vaccine Spikevax (mRNA-1273) from the US manufacturer Moderna has a very high effectiveness of around 94 percent. Like the Mainz active ingredient, it should be particularly effective in older people.

Spikevax must be given twice for full vaccination protection to build up. Ideally, this should be done every 28 days. The first protection starts after about ten days, the full effect only unfolds after the second dose.

compatibility

According to the approval documents available, the vaccine is well to moderately tolerated. Unexpected, worrying incidents were not observed.

Every second person vaccinated had moderate to severe typical flu-like vaccination reactions. The most common are fatigue, muscle and joint pain, and headache. They usually went away completely on the second day after the vaccination.

As of April 29, 2021, around 1.6 million vaccine doses had already been administered in Germany.

The Paul Ehrlich Institute (PEI) reports around 3,000 reports of suspected side effects following a vaccination. Of these, around six percent, i.e. exactly 175 cases, were serious and had to be treated in hospital.

A total of ten deaths occurred temporally related to the administration of Spikevax. According to the PEI, all of the deceased had serious previous illnesses. According to the current state of knowledge, it is therefore unlikely that the vaccine administration caused the deaths.

use

Spikevax was initially approved for people over the age of 18. On July 23, 2021, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) extended the approval so that the vaccine is now also recommended for adolescents from the age of 12. Spikevax does not require dose adjustments for people over 65 years of age.

Doctors give the vaccine intramuscularly. This means that they usually inject the respective vaccine dose into the upper arm. Such a vaccination dose corresponds to 0.5 milliliters, which contain 100 micrograms of the mRNA lipid nanoparticles.

There is currently no information on whether a second dose of vaccine can be replaced by another coronavirus vaccine.

Mechanism of action

In order to achieve an immune reaction, tiny sections of the viral genetic material are introduced into the body's cells. They contain the building instructions for the spike protein, with the help of which Sars-CoV-2 slips into human cells.

In the case of vaccination, the body cell does not produce the entire virus, but only a single viral protein structure. This is enough to train the immune system against the pathogen.

storage

Since an mRNA molecule breaks down very easily, it is packaged in a so-called lipid nanoparticle (LNP) during vaccine production. The LNP itself is mainly a combination of mRNA and an additive called SM-102. This additive makes the vaccine construct stable and storable, among other things.

A big advantage is that the Moderna vaccine does not have to be cooled as much as its counterpart Comirnaty from BioNTech / Pfizer: Spikevax can be stored unopened for up to 30 days at refrigerator temperatures of 2 to 8 degrees Celsius. This means that it can also be vaccinated by the family doctor. For the storage of the BioNTech / Pfizer vaccine, however, around minus 70 degrees Celsius are required.

scope of delivery

Germany has secured a total of 78 million vaccine doses of the Moderna vaccine. Around 6.4 million vaccine doses are expected by the end of the second quarter of 2021. How many can ultimately be delivered is not yet clear.

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