Universal COVID-19 vaccine with updated spike antigen confers full protection against all SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern

All currently used first-generation COVID-19 vaccines are based on prototypic spike sequences from ancestral 2019 SARS-CoV-2 strains. However, it remains unclear to which extent vaccination protects against variants of concern (VOC) which fuel the ongoing pandemic. Here we show in a stringent hamster challenge model that immunization using prototypic spike expressed form a potent YF17D viral vector (Sanchez-Felipe et al. 2021) provides vigorous protection against infection with ancestral virus and VOC Alpha (B.1.1.7), however, is insufficient to provide optimal protection against the Beta (B.1.351) variant. To improve vaccine efficacy, a revised vaccine candidate was created that carries a modified spike antigen designed to cover the entire VOC spectrum. Vaccination of hamsters with this updated vaccine candidate provides full protection against intranasal challenge with all four VOC Alpha, Beta, Gamma (P.1) and Delta (B.1.617.2) resulting in complete elimination of infectious virus from the lungs and a marked improvement in lung pathology. Vaccinated hamsters did also no longer transmit the Delta variant to non-vaccinated sentinels. Overall, our data indicate that current first-generation COVID-19 vaccines need to be urgently updated to cover emerging sequence diversity of VOCs to maintain vaccine efficacy and to impede virus spread at the community level.