European Medicines Agency says modified Covid vaccine needed to combat new variant

A new variant of the coronavirus has become dominant, supplanting other versions of the virus. This is why the Emergency Task Force of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in Amsterdam issued a statement on Tuesday advising that the Covid-19 vaccine be adapted ahead of vaccination campaigns organized by EU Member States this year and next, beginning with vaccination rounds in the autumn.

The JN.1 variant was first observed in the Netherlands at the beginning of October, leading to a sharp rise in the number of known infections. At the beginning of December, over half of coronavirus cases concerned the JN.1 variant. There was a peak in infections at that time in the Netherlands.

Sewage water measurements showed that the number of infections in the Netherlands dropped drastically since the peak in December. There are also very few people in the hospitals who are currently infected with the coronavirus.

"JN.1 differs from the XBB family targeted by previous updated vaccines and has now surpassed the XBB variants to become the most widely circulating variant worldwide," the EMA wrote in the statement. Because the vaccines used recently targeted the XBB variant, which had been dominant, the new variant emerged, and bypassed the protection people had built up from the vaccines. This was similar to earlier variants of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus.

Because the virus is constantly adapting, vaccines also need to be adapted to prevent a new revival of the virus. "The evidence indicates that targeting JN.1 will help maintain the effectiveness of the vaccines as SARS-CoV-2 continues to evolve," the EMA wrote. The organization encouraged vaccine producers to contact them for assistance if they are not yet targeting the new variant.

However, Dutch public health institute RIVM said there is no evidence to suggest that people will suffer from more severe symptoms of Covid-19 if they become infected with the JN.1 variant, when compared to an infection with an earlier variants.

Every autumn, residents in the Netherlands who are in certain medical risk groups can get a booster Covid jab. This includes people who have an autoimmune disease, individuals who work in healthcare or elder care, and others, like individuals. Pregnant women are no longer included on the list, though they did have priority for a vaccine shot last autumn.