Multivalent Vaccine Strategies in Battling the Emergence of COVID-19 Variants

The emergence of new SARS-CoV-2 variants has led to increased transmission and more severe cases of COVID-19, with some having the ability to escape the existing vaccines. This review discusses the importance of developing new vaccine strategies to keep pace with these variants to more effectively manage the pandemic. Many of the new vaccine approaches include multivalent display of the most highly mutated regions in the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein such that they resemble a virus particle and can stimulate an effective neutralization response. It is hoped that such approaches help to manage the existing pandemic and provide a robust infrastructure toward fast tracking responses across the world in case of future pandemics.