A New COVID-19 Variant Emerges

The CDC is now tracking a new variant, EU11, which as of this past Friday is accounting for 1.7% of the cases in the United States. EU11 is a distant descendant of the XBB15 variant, which is still the dominant strain in the United States, with it representing 27% of the cases. However, this is a 13% decrease from its reported 40% of cases reported on June 10. There are other XBB variants circulating and together make up the majority strain for COVID-19 cases in the country.

Currently, there is just a spattering of cases of the EU11 variant spread across the country, but according to a database, CoV-Spectrum, the highest concentration of cases are in Utah. There are a reported 97 cases statewide as of today. The second highest state total was California with 38 cases and New York with 12.

To learn more about vaccine protection against EU11, check out this interview with William Schaffner, MD, medical director of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases.

As the EU11 variant is just emerging it remains to be seen if it will become a dominant strain in the US, and what the potential protection of vaccines and therapies will be around this new strain.

Preparing for the upcoming seasonal virus season, a FDA VRBPAC meeting was held this month to discuss the composition of this year’s COVID-19 vaccines. This comes after it was decided earlier this year to host an annual meeting to discuss the dominant variants the vaccine should protect against. During the VRBPAC meeting it was decided to recommend the vaccines be monovalent and contain proteins protecting against the XBB lineage.

For all the COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers (Pfizer, Moderna, and Novavax) this will allow them the ability to update their vaccines. Of the 3, Moderna was the first to apply for authorization of the vaccine for the upcoming seasonal respiratory virus season. If authorized, the company said it would be ready with vaccine supplies for the fall and the start of the respiratory virus season.

After the meeting, Novavax said i it would also be ready for the fall with its updated vaccine.

"Novavax expects to be ready for the commercial delivery of a protein-based monovalent XBB COVID vaccine this fall in line with today's VRBPAC recommendation," Novavax President and CEO John C. Jacobs, said in a statement. "In partnership with regulators and public health authorities, Novavax has been developing and manufacturing this vaccine candidate, and now that we are nearing harmonization on guidance from the FDA, the World Health Organization and European Medicines Agency, we believe we are in a better position to offer an alternative vaccine choice for individuals worldwide."