TPfizer-BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine appears to work just as well against a rapidly spreading variant of the coronavirus first identified in the UK as against earlier forms of the pathogen, the companies said on Wednesday in a study reported.
The article from scientists of the company, which has not yet been evaluated by the peer, is a welcome signal that existing vaccines are apparently not weakened by the relevant variant, called B.1.1.7. Scientists have already tested the Pfizer vaccine against one of the major mutations in the variant and found that the neutralizing ability of the immunization is not affected.
Scientists are also testing vaccines against other variants of concern, which contain different mutations, which have been shown in laboratory experiments to help the virus to some extent to evade existing antibodies that recognize the virus. These mutations occur in variants first seen in South Africa and Brazil, which also appear to be more transmissible than earlier recurrences of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The variants in South Africa and Brazil have expressed concern that they can more easily re-infect people who have already recovered from Covid-19 and have antibodies against the virus, although more studies are ongoing.
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In the new study, researchers designed the so-called pseudoviruses (which are more practical to work with in laboratory experiments than real-life samples of dangerous viruses such as SARS-2) to have the full range of mutations such as B.1.1.7. They then tested blood from 16 people who had received the vaccine against the variant, and found that it could neutralize the variant, as well as an earlier form of the virus. “These data … make it unlikely that the B.1.1.7 lineage will escape” against the vaccine, the researchers wrote.
Experts believe that it is possible that some of the new variants may not respond as well to existing vaccinations as other forms of the virus. But they emphasize that the vaccines produce incredibly robust immune responses, allowing them to withstand some decrease in their potency without losing their ability to protect humans from Covid-19.
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“The effectiveness of the vaccine is so good and so high that we have a little pillow,” Rochelle Walensky, the incoming director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for the Biden Administration, said in an interview with the editor on Tuesday. said. of JAMA.
Eventually, the virus is expected to take on enough significant mutations that vaccine manufacturers need to update their vaccinations, a process that experts say is likely to take weeks to months, not years.