Durability of XBB.1.5 Vaccines against Omicron Subvariants
Dan-Yu Lin, Yi Du, Yangjianchen Xu, Sai Paritala, Matthew Donahue, Patrick Maloney
Abstract
On September 11, 2023, the updated Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA COVID-19 vaccines containing the SARS-CoV-2 omicron subvariant XBB.1.5were authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for all doses administered to individuals 6 months of age and older. 1 On October 3, 2023, the updated Novavax adjuvanted COVID-19 vaccine containing the spike protein from the XBB.1.5subvariant was authorized by the FDA for use in individuals 12 years of age and older. 2 Here, we report clinical data on the durability of protection conferred by these updated vaccines against circulating omicron subvariants over a 5-month period.We collected individual-level data on the uptake of the three XBB.1.5vaccines and the incidence of COVID-19 between September 11, 2023 and February 21, 2024 in a cohort of ~1.8 million persons by linking records from the Nebraska Electronic Disease Surveillance System and the Nebraska State Immunization Information System (NSIIS) (Supplemental Methods).During this period, the dominant circulating variants changed from EG.5 and XBB.1.16to HV.1 and then to JN.1, and the proportion of XBB.1.5decreased from 10% to <1%.In the cohort, 218,250 persons (11.9%) received XBB.1.5vaccines (61.1% Pfizer-BioNTech, 38.6% Moderna) (Figure S1); 21,988 SARS-CoV-2 infections, 1,364 COVID-19related hospitalizations, and 237 COVID-19-related deaths were reported (Table S1).