COVID-19 vaccine: recent advancements and future prospects

Nowadays, although severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) epidemic has been handled with long-term management globally, the virus strains keep continuous evolution in an uncertain direction. The newly emerged JN.1 dominated the globally circulating variants in a short time and resulted in increasing hospitalizations. Up to 2024, variant vaccines with the composition of XBB sub-lineage were available due to the coordinated efforts of developers and regulatory agencies. The development of updated vaccines is still needed and the regular availability of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines should be timely guaranteed. The current landscape of COVID-19 vaccines and the strategies for accelerating vaccine development and approval are reviewed. Proposals to enhance variants monitoring and the establishment of the strain recommendation mechanism are made. This review provides suggestions about platform technology designation and application, real-world data leveraging and modification to regulatory pathways both for the post-pandemic era of SARS-CoV-2 and for the future unknown pathogen pandemic.