Study: Moderna's COVID Vaccine Produces Twice The Antibodies Of Pfizer's
CAMBRIDGE (CBS) -- A new study is out comparing the COVID vaccine from Cambridge-based biotech company Moderna to the one developed by Pfizer. Moderna's two-dose vaccine produced twice the amount of antibodies that Pfizer's did, according to the study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
"What this implies is that protection from COVID-19 might be better or more long-lasting with the Moderna vaccine than the Pfizer vaccine. I do want to mention however that that is really kind of a leap, but it should also be said that the limited information we have about vaccine effectiveness does show typically that the Moderna vaccine is somewhat more protective than the Pfizer vaccine and both of them are more protective than the J&J vaccine. These things do correlate with the antibody levels," explained Dr. Paul Sax at Brigham and Women's Hospital.
Researchers said the difference could be due to Moderna's higher mRNA dose and the four-week interval between shots, compared to three for Pfizer.
"Whether the observed difference in antibody level translates to a difference in the duration of protection, the protection against variants of concern, and the risk of transmission needs further investigation," the study authors wrote.
The study consisted of more than 1,600 health care workers in Belgium.
The Centers for Disease Control said Monday that the effectiveness of coronavirus vaccines against severe disease has not dropped much, despite the highly contagious Delta variant.