Infographic: All About Bivalent COVID-19 Vaccines

Adults 18 and older can now book a bivalent COVID-19 vaccine in most places across Canada. But what exactly is a bivalent vaccine? What makes it different from the previous COVID-19 vaccines? And should you get this one, or wait for a vaccine to cover newer variants? We made this infographic to help answer your questions:

Image text and description:

Canadian Center for Vaccinology’s ALL ABOUT BIVALENT COVID-19 VACCINES.

What Is a Bivalent Vaccine?

The original COVID-19 vaccine was monovalent, which means it encouraged the immune system to make antibodies against antigens (the pieces of a virus that provoke our immune response) from one variant. Bivalent COVID-19 vaccines prompt the immune system to prepare antibodies against antigens from two different variants of the virus.

(Image: a bright blue virus is on the left, with a bright pink virus on the right. Each has an antibody matching it’s colour lined up with the protruding proteins on it’s surface. There is a plus sign between them to indicate how a bivalent vaccine addresses both)

Other multivalent vaccines.

COVID-19 isn’t the first disease with vaccines to address more than one type. Other examples of bivalent vaccines include the Flu shot, HPV vaccines and more. Current pneumococcal conjugate vaccines address up to 23 types!

(Image: to the left of the text, two vaccine vials are shown. Each has a different label – one has blue accents and one has orange.)

Why bivalent?

Multivalent vaccines allow increased protection while reducing the number of immunizations a person receives. They also reduce costs.

(Image: A cartoon depiction of a person with a dark bob cut and bangs, a blue surgical mask, and a pink shirt with rolled up sleeves. Behind her is a purple shield with white plus symbols. She is surrounded by viruses with red circles with strikes through them indicating that they were protected from them. In the foreground, a pair of hands holds a syringe and a vaccine vial.)

Protection against multiple variants

As of October 2022, the bivalent vaccines approved by Health Canada each aim to target subvariants of Omicron in addition to the original virus. One will cover BA.1 and one will cover BA.4 and BA.5.

(Image: a large blue check mark).

Why not newer variants?

Because it can take a while to develop and evaluate new vaccines, a quickly and continuously evolving virus like COVID-19 can be hard to make up-to-date vaccines for. Newer variants will likely be addressed in future vaccines.

This one or the next?

You may be tempted to wait for future options that cover other variants. But keeping your immunizations as current as you can is still a good way to gain better protection against more variants.

(Image: a cartoon depiction of a COVID-19 vaccine card with a green checkmark on it. The card is blue and white.)